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Shahed Alawad

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Between Love and War

An Interactive Documentary Book

This thesis explores love letters written during periods of war in the Levant, focusing on personal and emotional narratives that exist alongside conflict. Rather than engaging with political histories or official records, the project centers on private correspondence between lovers and family members to understand how intimacy, hope, and connection persist through separation and uncertainty.

Drawing from archived letters, family histories, and examples from Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, these writings are treated as emotional artifacts that reveal experiences of waiting, distance, and longing. The outcome is a minimal interactive documentary book that encourages slow, intentional engagement.

Through folded pages, inserted postcards, layered imagery, and moments of reveal, the book mirrors the fragile movement of communication across borders, allowing readers to experience the hesitation and intimacy within each letter. The project creates a quiet, tactile encounter that invites reflection, framing love and personal presence as ways of understanding war.

Shahed Alawad

Graphic Design 2026

This thesis explores love letters written during periods of war in the Levant, focusing on personal and emotional narratives that exist alongside conflict. Rather than engaging with political histories or official records, the project centers on private correspondence between lovers and family members to understand how intimacy, hope, and connection persist through separation and uncertainty.

Drawing from archived letters, family histories, and examples from Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, these writings are treated as emotional artifacts that reveal experiences of waiting, distance, and longing. The outcome is a minimal interactive documentary book that encourages slow, intentional engagement.

Through folded pages, inserted postcards, layered imagery, and moments of reveal, the book mirrors the fragile movement of communication across borders, allowing readers to experience the hesitation and intimacy within each letter. The project creates a quiet, tactile encounter that invites reflection, framing love and personal presence as ways of understanding war.

Tags

Editorial
Interactive

Between Love and War

An Interactive Documentary Book

Shahed Alawad

Graphic Design 2026

Tags

Editorial
Interactive

This thesis explores love letters written during periods of war in the Levant, focusing on personal and emotional narratives that exist alongside conflict. Rather than engaging with political histories or official records, the project centers on private correspondence between lovers and family members to understand how intimacy, hope, and connection persist through separation and uncertainty.

Drawing from archived letters, family histories, and examples from Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, these writings are treated as emotional artifacts that reveal experiences of waiting, distance, and longing. The outcome is a minimal interactive documentary book that encourages slow, intentional engagement.

Through folded pages, inserted postcards, layered imagery, and moments of reveal, the book mirrors the fragile movement of communication across borders, allowing readers to experience the hesitation and intimacy within each letter. The project creates a quiet, tactile encounter that invites reflection, framing love and personal presence as ways of understanding war.

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