Rose Issa began her adventure with the idea of promoting artists from the Middle East. "40 years ago, the Institute of the Arab World didn't exist, we didn't know anything about contemporary art in the Arab world and I realised that the only people who represented me were not our leaders or our ambassadors, but the artists." - quoted in L'Orient-le-Jour.
The producer, author and curator founded her own publishing house, Rose Issa Projects, to support artists. She produces monographs and art catalogues that enable artists to present their work in museums.
It was in 2017 that she came across Nayla Romanos Iliya's first series of sculptures, dating from 2013, which had evolved considerably. Starting with a Phoenician alphabet, she had created her own alphabet.
"Instinct is important, and my eye has been trained for 40 years to separate the wheat from the chaff. Nayla's work quickly convinced me that a monograph was absolutely essential." - Rose Issa.
The book, The Phoenician Alphabet, is available online, and will be presented on 8 June at the Corm Foundation in Beirut.