Souad Mani , multi-faceted Tunisian artist, gives us here a part of his artistic journey and his projects.
1- Between your journey as a visual artist and a multimedia artist, is there a common thread? Is it related to your studies and your research?I am a visual artist by training, I did the painting specialty and I started to practice photography before starting my university course. The fiber of photography runs through almost all my projects. My questions and my concerns around the image are revealed in my research projects since I am a doctoral student in Plastic Arts. I am, in fact, a multimedia artist by necessity since in my projects I also reflect on the question of exhibition space, time, distance, medium, the other and on the different modalities of reality that I to keep busy. My practice is therefore multimedia, it evolves towards a flow of media and new media and changes support and medium according to my concerns and the nature of my collaborations with others while keeping plastic thinking.
2- Your work is mixed, poetry in photos, sound installations and other multimedia… If you had to present just one of your works, which one would you choose?
In appearance my work is multiple, I can touch photography or installation or painting if I find the need, but in reality I am working on a single long-term project, in progress since 2008. My project, Elle M’aime, is engaged in a process of “pollinating” a single photograph around the world and connecting with people or organizations or spaces to see how it can provoke fruitful relationships. The Elle M’aime project therefore explores a database that generates journeys on different media and different territories that are often interconnected.
3- And in all this, what are your sources of inspiration?
Each place that I “live” can inspire me, in this sense to live for me is to occupy a space-time while having the senses available. This place can be a city, a book, a journey, a machine or an exchange.
4- And your projects for 2014?
I will participate in a collective exhibition in March at B´chira Art center under the theme Kodem Dari Fanń and at the Imago Mundi Luciano Benetton Collection event, Senegal and Tunisia. I continue to work on the database of my project “Elle M’aime” and on performances on the web.
