1202466115.jpg
Hans Ulrich Obrist
Interview with Susan Hefuna

ISBN 978-3-939 583-71-4

Hans Ulrich Obrist’s interview with Susan Hefuna


HUO: The first part of the interview took place between the Savoy Hotel and Paddington station, the station for the Heathrow Express. Symrin Gill once said to me that these days perhaps it’s no longer so important to belong to a single geography, but rather to be between geographies. And I have the impression when I see your biography that it has much more to do with an in-between life – by which I mean between Egypt and Germany. Could you maybe say something about that?
 
SH: Actually I have never really belonged to one geography because the other one was always somehow present. So I would say yes, in that sense the statement is true.
 
HUO: Was it like that from the beginning?

SH: It was always like that, yes, ever since I can remember. Ever since I became aware of it at all.

HUO: Because one often sees cases where artists turn up in one geographic region, then remember their origins and then a different geography becomes important to them. In your case it was always both, right from the start.
SH: Yes, but I’m not only talking about my career as an artist, I never really felt like I belonged specifically to one particular country, I was always somewhere in-between. Although as a child I began drawing and painting very early, to try and sort these feelings out. And then later as an artist it was still there. I had been exhibiting for a long time in Cairo, 1992 was my first exhibition, but my works had always contained this element. It happened automatically, because various levels of different cultures had always been present in my work – something that didn’t become clear to me until much later on. I would say that in 1992, when I had my first exhibition in Cairo, I became even more aware of it. But it had always been there.
 
HUO: But to go back to the beginnings: Where and when would you say your work first began?

SH: Well, as I said before, I had always been working. But the point in time when I first realised a real beginning was in 1992.
 
HUO: Can you tell me about the works from 1992? Because that was a crystallisation point for you. If I understand it correctly from other interviews, everything came together all at once?

SH: For me, yes. I had already decided a few years before to do an exhibition in Cairo. But things always take a bit longer there, until something finally gets off the ground. When I was there for the first time, not to visit family but rather as an artist, and then got the
feedback, that was simply a key experience for me: being able to see the different levels I have in my work, how many ways they can be read and also how much was not understood. I had always noticed it but I was not actually aware of why this was not seen back then when I was exhibiting in the West, primarily in Germany. That’s why it’s very important for me.
     
HUO: Can we talk a bit about those early works? Because back in the 1980s there were your multimedia works, and you started using digital cameras very early on.

SH: Sure, we can talk about that. Before that I painted a lot, it was with painting that I really got my start. There was a lot of activity which today is different as it is more rolled back. Now I take a lot more time to get something ready before I begin implementing it.

HUO: Where was that?

SH: I studied painting in Karlsruhe at the art academy, a fact that I found very important for my later photos. After I graduated I couldn’t get going and so I went back to school to study under Peter Weibel at the Institute for New Media in Frankfurt, which back in 1990 was very new. It was after that when my own work actually began for me. That was in 1992.

HUO: Did architecture suddenly become important to you in 1992?
SH: Yes, but only subconsciously. In retrospect things are much clearer to me.

HUO: Now to remain at the beginnings, who were your heroes? It is interesting to wonder, especially in view of your sense of belonging to two countries, whether there were perhaps influences from both Western and Eastern art. What were some things that inspired you, the fuel for your fire?
     
SH: During my studies I was naturally more influenced by European and American elements. Those influences on the painting of that time were very strong. But I didn’t have any actual role models. I’d say it was more – it’s difficult to explain – it was more an emotional thing. For example, at some point I started using these screens, and that wasn’t because I was using any artists as role models. I simply used elements that originated in Egyptian culture that had some kind of significance for me. I used such elements as well as colours and structures from this culture.

HUO: I am currently starting to do the same thing in the Middle East that I also did in Asia in the 1990s: driving all over the place to take a really close look. Of course these are long processes, and it always takes a lot of time. What interests me now is not just looking at contemporary art, but rather also finding out: who are the role models, what were the triggers and what are the important historical positions?
SH: No, I had no one who interested me that way (laughs). But I was always very impressed by the Egyptian singer Om Kalsoum. My father used to listen to her songs for hours, particularly in Germany. She never sang the same lyrics the same way twice. Her concerts often went on for 6 to 7 hours. She could touch people’s hearts simply by the way she sang a single word, the way she pronounced it. The songs somehow had no beginning and no end, endless variations and repetitions, very typical for Arabian poetry, and she came from the Nile Delta. At some point Pharaohic elements also inspired me, picture stories or just the architecture along the street in Alexandria and Cairo or the clay structures I saw in the Delta, but not necessarily the artists.

HUO: Were any artists in the West more important to you? Can you pinpoint it more there?

SH: More, yes. But it has always been a changing palette of artists that interested me.

HUO: Can you name some examples?

SH: There are always phases, where some parts interest me and not the whole artist. Artists who interest me again and again include: Louise Bourgeoise, Joseph Beuys, James Lee Byars, Eva Hesse, Paul Klee, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Agnes Martin, Joseph Cornell, Fischli and Weiss.
 
HUO: Let’s talk about those architectural influences? In the literature about your works there is always mention of the Islamic woodwork from the urban areas of Cairo, which oscillate between visibility and invisibility.

SH: Mashrabiya.

HUO: Right, it’s all about the seeing and the not seeing: what I see, what sees me, what I don’t see and so on.

SH: Those Mashrabiya screens are very old. They originated in ancient architecture, similar to the half-timbering architecture in Germany. They’re no longer used in contemporary architecture, but in the old days these screens were used to get the air in the rooms circulating, as a kind of ancient air conditioning system that cooled the air and filtered the light, and enabled the women to sit inside and look out the window while being protected from public view. They had a strong influence on me for a long time, I can’t really say now exactly why. Then I became increasingly absorbed with them, on an abstract level as well, actually very abstract.

HUO: And could you say that you also use a kind of mapping, a kind of urban research? Do you photograph these elements? Is there a notebook you use, or an Atlas?
   
SH: No, there isn’t (laughs). There are photos, but the photos stand for themselves, as photographic works. And the drawings are, for example, not preparatory drawings for photos. Neither are the photos used as a basis for the drawings, but rather the drawings are the view I would have if I were sitting in one of these rooms myself, because the nice thing about these rooms is that you’re isolated and protected from the world around you, but at the same time you can see it all. You see life outside the room, hear the cars and feel the hectic pace of the city – but you yourself are in calm surroundings, so it’s therefore very meditative. In principle I also need to be in such a mood when I do these drawings. Then I have to really concentrate and surround myself with a very calm atmosphere.
    
HUO: So these drawings are somewhat meditative?
    
SH: Yes exactly, but for me they are also rather exhausting. Each one is made of two superimposed layers of paper. I make the first drawing and when it’s finished I lay a second sheet of transparent paper over top and the second drawing is made on the basis of the one beneath it. That would be very difficult to photograph. And I don’t change anything on the lower drawing afterwards either. Although it is inspired by the photo, I’m not drawing a real window that I have photographed or that I am relating to.

HUO: I find it fascinating that there is also repetition and difference in your work. Tayfun Belgin speaks about this deviation
from concentrated order. Can you perhaps tell me something
about that?

SH: Yes, because that is very important to me. I must concentrate so hard as I never do a tracing first. I start with a thin brush. This is actually like writing, like calligraphy. I start working with ink and I really have to concentrate because every drop in the wrong place will be visible. And I never change anything afterwards. I have to concentrate so hard because I do every drawing in one sitting. For that reason you can always see my handwriting, just like in a letter. It isn’t perfect, although it is geometric. That’s probably what he meant by that.
 
HUO: Is this an ongoing, infinite series? Do you have daily drawing sessions? Or are there moments in which entire series are created, followed by pauses?
     
SH: I cannot draw every day, as I can’t always achieve the right level of concentration. I have to retreat into my shell to create these series. What happens is, every so often I take a break and then an entire series is born. So if there is a phase with the right atmosphere and if I’m able to withdraw, then I need a few days before I can actually begin to draw. And then I can do them. I never make any preparatory drawings for my work, so I never know what will be the final result.

HUO: So one could say that coincidence and lack of planning play
a role?
SH: Oh yes. That is a candid word for what I don’t know – that is I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence. My drawings from 1999 look different than the ones I did in 2003. And every year you can see how they’ve changed. For example, almost all of the drawings were done in New York and I believe you can see that in my works. Especially in the works from 2003 I start relating to architecture and houses, but not in a concrete way. I go for long walks and that also has an impact on my work. So it’s not necessarily a coincidence in my opinion.
   
HUO: So your drawings are not as much a copy, but rather a reproduction. And how does that relate to the oscillation between the second and the third dimensions? For example in Dubai at the art fair I saw a three-dimensional window of yours at the Third Line Gallery. It had to do with such elements, but all of a sudden it’s three-dimensional. Are those interpretations or parallel realities?
    
SH: It is parallel. Because naturally I do my drawings by hand with brush and ink and so my hand and the strokes can clearly be seen. In 2004 I then began working in wood with local wood-turners. They were craftsmen who made Mashrabiya screens, and there aren’t many of them left. They turn each individual element by hand. And of course the geometry differs depending on the wood they use. But I don’t transfer any drawings to wood, I make 1:1 drawings for the craftsmen. I draw the patterns precisely. I know which elements there are and then I draw the structures precisely for them.
   
HUO: It is interesting to note that these are sculptures, autonomous works, and at the same time they are also architectural embellishments.
   
SH: I never thought about it that way. Actually I usually notice these things a few years after I’ve done something, when I look back at it in context. But at the time I didn’t really think about what it was.
 


Part 2 in the Heathrow Express


HUO: We have already talked about studio practice. You used to have an atelier in Cairo, but now one could say that this is post studio practice.
 
SH: Yes.

HUO: So you work on the road?
 
SH: Exactly. Actually I’ve always worked in different places. I thought it was nice to have a studio, but it turned out differently because that’s not the way I work. So I gave it up.
 
HUO: Are many of your works created on trips?
   
SH: Yes, I do my drawings in places I often go to and where I know I’ll be in a peaceful atmosphere. I did all of the preparatory drawings for the wooden Mashrabiyas in hotels. I then travel to Cairo and know which words I will write on them and I make a small drawing. Then I make the originals when I get there. That takes a few days, as they must be done in the original size. Then I go to the wood-turners and discuss everything with them. Here again, I don’t make any first drafts or different versions.

HUO: It would seem then that all of Cairo is your studio. Because you use various specialised workshops and you work in hotels. And you also do your photographic works. Even if there is no Atlas, as you have said, there is often photographic research – for example when I think about this Townhouse Catalogue. Can we perhaps talk a bit more about the city of Cairo as a laboratory?

SH: Yes, that’s the series of black-and-white photos that I made with a pinhole camera. I had that idea in 1997 and it took me two years until I could find such a camera because I thought they were still being used in Egypt. But then, when I was there, I noticed that the people there didn’t use them anymore. So then I did these works on the street with such an old camera, I developed the film on the street and I bought some solutions that are often no good anymore and then mistakes occur – things you can’t control. I integrated all that in the process.
I used the street quasi as a tool, like when you manipulate something on a computer, and also the dirt in the streets, the imperfection and
so on. And the sunlight, it always depends on the angle of the sun how everything develops.
   
HUO: Then there is the catalogue on your photographic works from Egypt for the Townhouse Gallery that deals with the Nile Delta, can you tell me something more about that?
 
SH: Oh, I also made an entire series of that, working on the Nile Delta and the city of Cairo over and over again. Because my family comes from the Delta, from the countryside, and that is naturally a lot different than life in the city. That also had a great impact on me. I know the area like the back of my hand and so I just did some works on it. And also the black-and-white photos with the pinhole camera, and what was fascinating for me was that every time I’ve shown these works outside of Egypt – I always show the same work, whether in Egypt or in many other countries – most people can’t see if it’s the city or the countryside. They all think, OK that’s Cairo. But if I show the same work to people in Cairo, the people recognise it, and then the work has a completely different meaning.
 
HUO: So you would say that certain codes exist, depending on
the culture?
    
SH: Yes. I noticed that most people only see the surface. Black-and-white aesthetics and palm trees for example – and then it looks like Oriental aesthetics. I also worked consciously with that.
HUO: And how did this decision to use the pinhole camera come about? There are so many digital cameras out there. I’ve often noticed how you mix old media with new […]
 
SH: Oh, I do that on purpose. I worked with digital cameras long before I worked with the pinhole camera and then when I took up the pinhole camera it was with a special idea in mind. Of course I could have also manipulated the photos on a computer to make them look like they’d been shot with an old camera. But I didn’t want that. What I really wanted was to integrate coincidental factors and the street. I was inspired to do that because I was thinking about the “Lehnert & Landrock” bookstore.

HUO: Which bookstore is that?

SH: It’s a bookstore that has been around in Cairo for over a hundred years. It was originally founded by a German and a Swiss man. They have always sold famous Oriental photographs that everybody knows and that have had a considerable influence on many people’s image of the Orient. These pictures, of women in the Orient or the pyramids or the temple, for example, are all done in black-and-white aesthetics. They were the first ones to take pictures of these things. These beautiful photos and postcards are still sold there today and they have had a strong influence on the way the Orient is viewed, even in Egypt. That also has a retrospective influence on Egyptian culture.

HUO: So it was almost a production of reality?
    
SH: Yes, and everyone knows that many of those women were paid. You think the photos are authentic, but actually it was all staged. That was what inspired me, because I had noticed that when a lot of culturally educated people from the Western world thought about Egypt – nowadays things have changed, but seven or eight years ago it was the case, even in the art scene – they automatically imagined the Pharaohs and the past. It never occurred to them that there is also a present day there. And that was also caused by all those pictures, but they have had an influence on Egyptian culture too.
     
HUO: So it’s the same thing when Orhan Pamuk says that Gerard de Nerval’s picture of Istanbul made the image of Istanbul reality. That seems very much the same thing to me.
    
SH: Yes. That’s why I also wanted to use black-and-white aesthetics and I didn’t manipulate anything with the computer, I just worked with an old pinhole camera. That way I captured on film some normal everyday scenes, in the Delta as well, that are important to me and that would otherwise not be visible. But I am also aware that sometimes only the surface is seen. I used this purposely to deceive the observer. I have also taken such photos of myself, in the museum, where the Mashrabiyas are – and most people who see them think that they’re some authentic old photos. Many people think they are authentic pictures, how the women are sitting in such a building.
For starters, no women sit behind Mashrabiya screens anymore and secondly,  it’s a museum […]
 
HUO: So it’s a case of double deception, if you will?
 
SH: (laughs) Yes.

HUO: Could one say, deception as a medium?

SH: Not necessarily. There are people who can see it. It all depends on who is looking at the picture.
     
HUO: To go back to the urban space for a minute, let’s talk about your photographs in Sharjah. Can you tell me something about them? Where your work suddenly turns into architecture.

SH: I was invited to exhibit there and it was a big topic: still life, ecology, art and politics of change. First I had completely different plans. But when I was there last year, I didn’t want to do something too pedagogic on this theme. I wanted to get more involved in the whole situation. Then I looked around for someone who worked with palm wood. The decisive factor was a net made of palm wood that was used to catch fish, a real relic from the old days. Then I tried to find some craftsmen who still knew how to make these nets. I had a driver and we asked around where we could find these people and they kept on sending us further and further. Somebody would say, yeah go here or go there. In the end we went searching from one end of Sharjah to the other, practically across the whole country. But I never found anyone. Anyway it was very interesting for me because I got to see the mountains. The countryside was new to me. And then I saw these great long queues of trucks that were hauling big rocks, to build houses in Dubai and man-made palm islands in the water. At that time I didn’t take any photos. In Dubai I also noticed these huge billboards everywhere and the highly reflective glass. Then I asked why they built all those houses with the reflective glass. They explained to me that it reflects the sun, during the day no one can see inside the buildings and in the evening they’re transparent. That reminded me a bit of the Mashrabiya screens, of their structure. And then I thought I could use this for my own work. So then I went back there and photographed the entire trip. Everything I remembered.



Part 3 in Terminal 1, Heathrow


HUO: We were talking about your works in Sharjah. On the one hand you exhibit research documents and at the same time there is an architectural installation on this big square. Can you say how this came about? It’s a mirrored space of charged tension.
SH: Both of these works belong together. That’s always noted on the exhibition too. I chose the two locations myself. The first one is the art museum where you can see my documentation of the drive through nature as it is being excavated and removed to Dubai for construction. And for the other I chose the Heritage Area, specifically Heritage Square. The houses are all made of clay. And behind those clay structures you can also see glass buildings. I had seen several three-dimensional billboards in Dubai and one of them really struck my fancy. They all look just like buildings. They were what inspired me to create my own three-dimensional billboard at this location. At first I wanted to erect it right on the intersection, but that wasn’t allowed by the building authorities. Actually it was intended to block the way. It was constructed by a company that normally builds such glass houses, with the same elements, out of this highly reflective glass. On the inside I had it sandblasted.
 
HUO: Can visitors to the installation go inside?

SH: No, it is completely closed. On the inside is written “Mirage 07”. In the evenings when the light fades you can look right through the letters. And the part that is sandblasted is completely closed. During the daytime the box sometimes becomes a mirror and reflects everything around it. That always depends on the light.
     
HUO: So you could say that this work is never the same in any
two locations.
SH: Exactly. At different moments it’s never the same. When I was there, for example, the weather was bad and in that light the effect was completely different. And depending on the time of day the shadows change with the writing on the ground. It looks different every time.
    
HUO: And something that also plays a role is the light in the Emirates. One often hears about the omnipresence of sand. They have these incredible sand storms there. And even when the weather is very clear, there is still all this sand. I could easily imagine that with those unbelievably clear, mirrored surfaces and the sand in contrast that there could be some encounters.

SH: Well, the day before the opening everything was all polished, and then came a huge sandstorm accompanied by a thunderstorm. So of course everything was full of sand and rain and so on. It’s supposed to be kept very clean, but I don’t know if it is. If it isn’t kept clean that just becomes part of the installation.

HUO: So there are different manifestations of this work.
    
SH: Exactly. I really liked that about it and it also reminded me of my video that I shot in the Delta from the roof of my parents’ house in 2001. I filmed an intersection for a hundred minutes, and captured everything that happened during that time. I also had a hidden camera at the exhibition in Sharjah, because I had to wait so long until they finished setting up. For five days I sat there at that square. Then at some point I just started filming because there was so much going on. There’s a mosque nearby and all around are benches and there’s always something happening at this square. So ultimately I also filmed that.

HUO: All that activity where you first think nothing is going on and in reality so much is happening seems to be a typically Egyptian phenomenon. Would you agree? How would you call it, is it busy slowness or slow busyness? It’s actually a kind of oxymoron.
 
SH: That’s part of the reason why most of my works are created there. I find it very inspiring how so much is happening and at the same time nothing is happening at all. I find that very inspiring. I miss that for example in Dubai, this atmosphere that you find everywhere in Cairo and other parts of Egypt.
     
HUO: So we could say that you created a typical Egyptian situation in Sharjah?
 
SH: Yes exactly, it reminded me of that. And what I also wanted to say:
When you photograph this glass box and its structure, it looks like the projection of a film on a big screen. The interesting thing was also that people were sitting on the benches and looking at whatever was reflected in the mirrors. Because they sit there the whole day anyway. And then they were looking at themselves in this three-dimensio-
nal image.

HUO: So it was almost like reality became a film? And in this realtime story, in this accelerated activity in your video from 2001 – which is one of your most well-known, widely seen and also most discussed work – some very interesting things happen. Actually nothing is going on but at the same time you have the impression that some intriguing conspiracies are unravelling.

SH: It’s an intersection near my parents’ house. Everyday things happen among people, things that happen everywhere that you find all over the place. But in this case you can clearly see it in the video. This work is also very abstract for me.
 
HUO: Paul Klee once said that art is about make the invisible visible. Maybe there is an element of that here?

SH: Yes, perhaps. I don’t know what is visible, or what is visible for someone else. But it’s an attempt – without making it concretely visible.
 
HUO: Have you also made any other such video projects or realfilm situations where this busy slowness, this typical Egyptian condition is revealed to the world?

SH: Yes, my Frankfurt/Oder film that I shot in front of the church. I had been invited to exhibit in the church. The film was entitled “Via fenestra” and I did that one after I had made the film in the Nile Delta. It’s actually my only work of this kind in Germany. I sat on a chair on the church square and filmed the activity on the square through a window. Later the film was projected in the church. That situation is of course completely different than the one in Cairo. I am the same person, but the atmosphere is different.
 
HUO: How could one describe this difference?
 
SH: For the people walking around there, the fact was that someone was sitting on a chair, like a foreign body. The people just tried to deal with it normally, as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on. They tried to drive around me with their cars, to park them, rather than asking me to move. That is not the same as in Egypt – there it’s normal for somebody to sit on the street. The situation in the video therefore turned out differently.

HUO: So we can speak with Gilles Deleuze of “différence et répétition”? One and the same method produces different results in two different places?
    
SH: Yes. It simply interested me to see what was happening.

HUO: When you created the large and complicated architectural work in Sharjah, it was the first time you really created architecture. Are there any other such projects of yours that haven’t yet been realised? This is a question I always bring up in my interviews.
Any utopian projects, architectural projects, projects that were too big to be realised, or even projects that were censored? Have you ever been censored?
 
SH: No I’ve never been censored. Once in South Africa I did an installation that got the people on the street involved. Afterwards I twice thought about doing it in London too, but it was never realised for financial reasons. Then I once had an idea for a film, but it was too complicated and so it was never completed.
 
HUO: A cinematic film?
 
SH: The story was inspired by an African story. I can’t tell it off the top of my head right now, but it was supposed to show various levels of reality, fantasy, time and culture. It wasn’t really a video, but rather became a real story.

HUO: But not linear?
 
SH: Oh yes, both linear and at the same time interwoven.
 
HUO: A non-linearity similar to the stories of Alain Robbe-Grillet, the great author of the Nouveau Roman?
    
SH: Yes, like that.
 
HUO: Is there any literature that is particularly important to you? Any bridges to literature?

SH: The songs of Om Kalsoum, poems of Rumi, Albert Einstein, Sufism, Annemarie Schimmel, the 7 Al Muallaqat poems that legend has it originally hung on the walls of the Kaaba, Amos Tutuola: The Palmwine Drinkard, a Nigerian story, Grimm’s Fairy Tales: Cinderella, Snow White, Vilem Flusser: Towards a Philosophy of Photography, Writings, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, “Ereignis und Aura” by Dieter Mersch, Architecture for the Poor by Hassan Fathy, Naguib Mahfouz: The Cairo Trilogy, The Yacoubian Building and many others, some stories I read over and over again.
   
HUO: And are there any other unrealised projects, utopias or dreams?

SH: I’m simply excited about the future, what kind of works I will create next.
 
HUO: Yes, I am too. We could actually wrap it up here, but I do have a few more questions for you. You use a pinhole camera, you use crafts, and you use ink drawings – one of the oldest media forms of all – and at the same time you also work with digital media. In an interview I did last week with Zaha Hadid, I asked her about her origins in the Middle East and her childhood in Iraq. She had created a very interesting relationship between calligraphy and calligraphic curves and the new curves that are very important for her in computer technology. In this regard perhaps there is a bridge between you and Zaha Hadid, because you also draw the same relationships between traditional Egyptian art forms, if you will, with the abstraction of the screens and at the same time the windows in digital technology.
 
SH: I believe that, because I maintain some distance to this culture, on the one hand I am very familiar with it but at the same time I view it from a distance. For this reason I perhaps also perceived the Mashrabiya screens more abstractly than if I had always lived in that environment. So by viewing them from the outside I believe that I interpreted them as abstract structures, like for example the Afaz made of palm wood. They are still being intricately carved and put together by hand today. I see them everywhere as structures on the streets. I think that through my view from the outside, I see such things as structure. I also work with the old crafts, but for a different reason – for the structure.
 
HUO: To go back to the question of old media – new media. When television was invented, the radio didn’t become obsolete, but rather was re-invented. And I find it interesting that, while you studied painting, you also studied New Media with Peter Weibel. You didn’t forsake the one for the other, but rather allowed both elements to coexist in your work.
   
SH: Drawing is very important for me, I need to draw. Because I can’t work with any other medium like I can with drawing. Therefore I must do both at the same time.
 HUO: That brings us back to the parallel realities (laughs).
 
SH: That’s something I would never do, excluding one thing because of another.

HUO: That can also be seen in your works with copper plates.
 
SH: They’re not plates, they are three-dimensional and do not photograph well. They are structures that are three-dimensional. I’d also like to continue with that work. That was in 1994. Maybe I’ll do some more of those for this exhibition.
 
HUO: So you might do some more copper architecture for the exhibition that we’re doing this interview for? Because they are actually architecture, non-linear spaces, they are very much multi-dimensional spaces.

SH: And the important thing is that they only work if the lines are joined, because only then can the current flow. So I did the drawings, like my ink drawings, but these are made of silver. And then a layer of copper is adhered to the object with the help of galvanic application in a tank. The copper sticks to the structure and it becomes three-dimensional. That is how those works were created. Afterwards there is no more electricity.

HUO: So it’s electricity that creates those works?
SH: Exactly. Energy and structure. Here it was very important to me to make the moment of a drawing, the structure that I created through the movement of my hand, into a three-dimensional structure. That’s how I arrived at this procedure. Otherwise I could have cut them out of a single plane. But here the drawn lines have become three-dimensional. They must all be joined, otherwise it won’t work. The works are then hung on the wall, where they create the shadow on the wall that belongs there.
 
HUO: Can we imagine that this 1994 series will be taken up again and perhaps even altered? And there are also those waxed copper satchels and that would perhaps be interesting to talk about at the airport.

SH: Well I never thought of them as satchels (laughs), but the size fits. In the inside is a flat plate and then wax and also a drawing that is connected and then I do the electroplating process.

HUO: So the electricity creates the drawing here?
 
SH: Yes, and I also hang them up on cables.
 
HUO: Kind of like pop-ups? The electric current triggers a pop-up effect? That’s very interesting, you could even say that electricity is your medium.

SH: Exactly. That was the reference to the computer. Back then I first thought about doing it with CNC tooling, but that would have involved a lot of research. That was in 1994, when such a thing wasn’t so easy. Calculating every move you make with your hand would have been very complicated, it still is today because it’s still in three-dimensional layers. You can’t see that here.

HUO: That’s difficult to reproduce and is very fascinating. So the reference to Zaha Hadid was important because we hit upon these architectural models. Because they really are architectural models.
 
SH: Naturally it would also be interesting to make them bigger.

HUO: You mean they could be used as models for larger structures or for a city?
   
SH: They could, yes.

HUO: Perhaps one last thing: what really interests me at the moment is the current formation of Middle East identity in art. I was recently at the Dubai art fair, and I’ll be returning for the first design congress. What I found interesting in Dubai, and at the forum, was that more and more artists from the Middle East are getting together, from India as well. At the end of the day, many of these artists are living in exile and are now meeting up. This is resulting in the first major collections as their works are brought together, and there is also an increasing amount of literature about art in the Middle East. However, we see fragmented and perhaps isolated scenes suddenly being connected. There is so much traffic between those countries – there are often border problems for people travelling between Lebanon, Iraq and other countries. So I wanted to ask if you could tell me a bit about the scene. You mentioned Mona Marzouk and her partner, Bassam El Baroni, can you tell me about some other people you are in close contact with? It would be interesting to hear from you how you see this definition of the Middle East. Is that an artificial construct? Are they really very different scenes – or does it make any sense to bring them together?
     
SH: Well, I’m lucky to have both an Egyptian and a German passport. In the Arabian world, for example in the Emirates, it’s easier for me to travel with my German passport. For years now ‚ I’ve wanted to travel to India, due to the architecture and the connection to the Mashrabiyas. For 2008 I’ve made concrete plans to go there. It’s not so far from Dubai. I can’t really talk much about the scene in general. I know it’s coming more to the fore, becoming more visible from the outside, but I can only talk about my own personal view from the inside. I find it very important to see the individual positions. Individuals, who for various reasons had and have a connection, for example, to Cairo or the region whose energy has created structure over the years. Mona Marzouk and Youssef Nabil I’ve known the longest, for over 10 years. Youssef did portraits of me in 2001 and 2003. Then in 2005, together with art critic and curator Bassam El Baroni, Mona opened the non-commercial art space ACAF, the Alexandria Contemporary Art Forum. Mahmoud Khaled is also working there. I am having the exhibition there in February of 2008. Incidentally, that will also be my first exhibition in Alexandria. I’ve known the Townhouse in Cairo right from the beginning. I met William Wells in 1998, about a week before he opened the gallery. Over the years I’ve had many exhibitions there, and have given workshops etc. I’ve also been in group exhibitions with many artists from Townhouse outside of Egypt, for example with Huda Lutfi, Lara Baladi, Amal Kenawy, Khaled Hafez, Wael Shawki, there are so many artists, there’s Hassan Khan, Yassr Gerab, Ayman Ramadan, Shady El Nosokaty, to mention but a few. In 2004 the non-commercial art space CIC, Contemporary Image Collective was also founded by artists Heba Farid and Hala Elkoussy and later opened in Cairo. Together with some other artists with whom I have also exhibited, such as Maha Mamoun, Jihan Ammar and Rana Nemr and others, I was a Board member right from the beginning. For 2008 I’m planning an exhibition in the CIC with the results of a workshop with women on the topic of life stories.
   
HUO: Then perhaps one very last question: I’ve been reading a lot lately about Nancy Spero, the Vietnam War and about all that anti-war art on Vietnam. At the moment we are having this long war in Iraq and now even more political art is emerging. How do you view the issue of politics for your work?

SH: Well, I don’t do political art per se, but nevertheless it sometimes ends up being political. Sort of the same thing as with the photos: it all depends on the context in which I show my works. Then they might be interpreted politically although I personally do not do any political art. One example where that was very clear was when I was showing an installation in the National Gallery in Cape Town in South Africa in the year 2000. I enlarged an Afaz and transported it there. I gave out flyers on the street and in various communities to motivate the people to contribute things that have to do with their identity, in order to complete the installation. And then a lot of people came who had many different cultural contexts. Some of them even brought me stuff during the opening and treated it like a shrine. It got more and more crowded. This work, for example, was described in the media as politically oriented.

HUO: So things can easily get charged up?
 
SH: Exactly. I hadn’t really thought about it, but it became political from the outside, through the context.

HUO: Thank you very much.