Culturing Chaos and Complexity.

Emerged as a response to the volatile environments artists, creatives, and cultural entrepreneurs often situate in, UKAI Project produces projects centred on leveraging the tools of capitalism toward different ends, based in Toronto, Canada, founded by Jerrold McGrath.

UKAI Projects is occupying the ruins. It is an exploration of constraint and liberation.

Brand Strategy | Creative Direction | Design by Luisa Ji and Nour Bishouty

Toronto-based artist Nour Bishouty and I decided that a brand doesn’t need one logo — it can have many. In fact, it needs many. As chaotic as it may be, we are convinced that a monoculture of “brand image” isn’t what UKAI Project stands for. Chaos within constraints, shapes shaped by constraints, and a collection of imperfect weirdness that delightfully surprises the viewers.

Busting through the obsession with logo-making in branding, and countless jokes about “make the logo bigger,” Nour and I want UKAI’s logo not simply bigger, but something that’s so jarring that you can’t look away. They occupy the remains of your attention span, they disrupt your reading flow, they are sometimes disgusting, but the discomfort is 100% intended.

We can honour the rules and customs that made our cultures recognized, whilst breaking them and let the cultures we inhabit emerge and flourish. It may be uncomfortable, but it is inevitable. In the midsts of the process, you may even discover something beautiful, much like the namesake fishing practice 鵜飼 (cormorant fishing, ukai). Symbolically, the model of fair share and mutual care between the fishermen and the cormorants engrained in a cultural practice serves to guide the unfolding of UKAI Projects, in a world that favours industrial efficiency and speed.

Read more: https://www.ukai.ca/news/articulating-the-strange-making-the-ukai-brand

UKAI Projects draws on anarchist philosophies and relies on many voices.

We occupy the ruins and turn them over to new uses.

We free up resources from spaces abandoned by capitalism to produce culture.

We connect creators to others that share their interests and passion.

We test out new ways of working together and getting paid.

— UKAI Project