Competition: we've teamed up with publishers Brusselssprout to give readers the chance to win five copies of their new Dubai Graphic Encyclopedia.

The 176-page soft-cover book visually catalogues Dubai's buildings, people, dress, transport, animals and more in alphabetical order.

Each winner will receive a copy of the book plus two notebooks.

This competition is now closed.

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Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeenmail newsletter and at the bottom of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

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Here are some more details from Brusselssprout:

Dubai Graphic Encyclopedia is a visual and graphic compilation of Dubai and its time. It documents cultural patterning, visual vocabularies and iconic grammar through a compendium holding a summary of unique characteristics of the city which, as in encyclopedias, are accessed alphabetically.

A visual journey starting from the Abras on the Creek, the Airbus A-380, the iconic buildings, the camels in Nad Al Sheeba, the SUV cars, the Mercedes G55, the Dhows, the Dirham Coins, the Palms, the Workers…. And ending with the traditional Yowalah dance.

To consider compiling an encyclopedia (of any kind) in post-Wikipedia times is an exercise in emotional withdrawal. From a position of bewilderment and confusion Brusselssprout choose to act by producing and employing another tool from the land of the naive and outdated, represented by encyclopedic work, devoid of all logic and meaning considering current cultural conditions and speed. What the first edition Dubai Graphic Encyclopedia presents is a reality that acts as a counterpoint to all the excess of attempts to decipher and understand Dubai. Attempts that are mostly unable to uncover items that shed light on the question ‘What’s it all about’?”

Organizing scanning devices for the entire physical reality and processing information in much the same way as the early explorers did in order to reach unknown lands. The encyclopedia will be updated periodically so as to provide an authentic (temporal) guide and a database for Dubai and its times.

With the suspicion that perhaps behind all this there’s a new grammar, we also need to develop new dictionaries. Introducing the Dubai Graphic and Visual Encyclopedia as a tool that continues the work undertaken by Brusselssprout in identifying gaps in local contemporary art production in Dubai and the region and its lack of documentation in many cases.

Brusselssprout is a curatorial publisher based in Dubai, that “aims to become an open, independent and alternative platform offering content related to the artistic and cultural world.” They hope to champion underrepresented or otherwise noncommercial projects, exploring the new media landscape as a frontier for curatorial possibilities.

Technical Information:
Dubai Graphic Encyclopedia + CD
Size 180 x 190 mm (Landscape)
Extent :176 pages Soft cover
RSP: 40 USD
ISBN: 9-788461-535668
Limited Edition: 1,250 copies
Authors: Ignacio Gomez, Blanca Lopez
Edited & published by Brusselssprout 2011

Available at Brusselssprout Store www.brusselssprout.org and in UAE at Jashanmal Bookstores and Kinokuniya Store.

Congratulations to the winners! Piotr Gradzinski, James Ryall, Roudha Abdulla Alawadhi, Pedro Manzano Ruiz and Yiannis Kanelis all won copies of Dubai Graphic Encyclopedia.