The other side: AGI Open Mexico explores what it means “to live on opposite sides of an imaginary wall”

Each year, members of the Alliance Graphique Internationale – a professional association of the world’s leading graphic artists and designers – convene in a different city for the AGI Congress, a chance to debate the profession, share knowledge and offer inspiration and encouragement to future creatives. The student-focused conferences have previously taken place in Seoul, São Paolo, London, Barcelona and, most recently, Paris. This year will see members gather in Mexico over the 28–29 September at the country’s National Conservatory of Music.

Founded in 1951, in Paris, AGI has stringently upheld the core values set out by its founders – the belief that graphic design is fundamental to how we communicate, educate and inform – and the space created annually is a chance for open discussion, rather than closed lectures.

On the topic of the theme, current AGI President, Nikki Gonnissen, is very frank, “In quite tumultuous times, Mexico and the USA decided on collaborating for this year’s Congress. Not in America as you might expect, but in Mexico. They also bravely chose the central theme of ‘El otro lado / The other side’ – a hard-to-miss reference to the tense political relationship between Mexico and America. And therefore an exploration into what it means to live on opposite sides of an imaginary wall.”

The conference theme will be interpreted in myriad ways – from the political to the deeply personal – by speakers including Selva Hernández (third generation of a large family of antiquarian booksellers in Mexico City, as well as a researcher and curator specialising in the book as an object), Patrick Thomas (graphic artist, The New York Times contributor and founder of laVista) and Tin & Ed (the New York and Melbourne based studio blurring the lines between work and play, design and art).

Tickets are on sale now via the link below.

AGI Open is the annual conference of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. AGI members freely participate in Open with the purpose of sharing knowledge and encouraging generations of designers to come.