About the Instructor
Ali Hussein
"The pen does not merely write — it breathes life into language."
Ali is an Egyptian master's student at ETH Zürich. A year ago, far from home, he began studying Arabic calligraphy as a way of staying close to his Egyptian and Islamic heritage — a quiet, daily return to language as something drawn, not only spoken.
That practice became a documentary with RTS, following Ali on a journey back to Cairo to learn from an established calligraphy master in the city where the letters first found him. Since then he has deepened his study — not only of calligraphy, but of the wider craft traditions that surround it, from wood carving to other Eastern arts.
Today, Ali opens that practice up. Dywan is his invitation to others — to slow down, hold a qalam, and find their own way into a form of art that asks for patience and gives back stillness.
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