Alt Text Workshop
Sunday afternoon with Christophe Clarijs
Sunday 23 February 2025, 1pm - 3pm
Spots are limited email us to secure your spot.

'Alt text' is a contraction of 'alternative text'. Text as alternative to image. 

More precisely, descriptive text tells us what a particular image consists of. Not what it is about or how it should be interpreted. Instead, it is a detailed summary of what, if able, we can observe. Alt text allows those who cannot (in a visual sense) derive the information from an image, whether they are human or human-made machines, to do so through words.

The workshop will be an exercise in writing alt text, based on the artworks in the Shimmer’s current exhibition Coalescence: Happenstance With All Due Intent, during a Sunday afternoon with graphic designer Christophe Clarijs.

Writing alt text, however, is not a frictionless exercise. We will discuss different strategies on how to approach it. Aided by different writing tools to typeset versions of the artworks. Turning objects into words and thoughts into typography. 

Email us by 20 February at shimmerrotterdam@gmail.com to secure your spot. 

About Christophe Clarijs:

Christophe Clarijs runs an independent graphic design practice based in Antwerp, Belgium. He works closely with artists, publishers and cultural institutions on visual identities, websites, exhibition signage, books, and other printed matter.

Christophe was a participant at the Jan van Eyck Academie artist-in-residence programme in 2015. He was the in-house graphic designer of M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp from 2016 to 2020. Currently, he teaches in the BA Studio Grafisch Ontwerp at Sint Lucas School of Arts Antwerp.