My interview with Tunisian-born, Italy-based graphic journalist Takoua Ben Mohamed has just been published on Middle East Monitor with the title “Drawing her own story from Douz to Rome”.
“‘I don’t actually read that many comic books,’ laughs Takoua Ben Mohamed. ‘And I have never set foot in a comic book fair.’ Don’t mistake what she says for a snooty, ‘I don’t read comic books, I only make them.’ Make what you’d like to see in the world, they say. More broadly, make something that embodies what you want to see in the world, whatever the medium you choose. It just so happens that the world of speech bubbles and comic strips is Takoua’s cup of tea.”
Here’s the link to the article
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Published! Interview with Koushna Navabi on Global Comment
I’m back at my desk (figuratively) after a few days hiatus. I didn’t go far really. I’m spending summer in my hometown Sorrento and I have been exploring the beautiful surroundings – Positano, Amalfi, Capri, Ieranto and so on – with my partner in crime, curator Roberto D’Onorio. (Here and here our visual diary where we shamelessly glamourize ourselves.)
Back to my beloved work, it was great to see that Global Comment published my interview with Iranian/American/London-based artist Koushna Navabi. I visited her studio one year ago, and I was fascinated by the delicate dark beauty of her art. Koushna left Iran at sixteen and flew to America. In her teen years, she discovered art, and felt in love with Europe. She therefore moved to London to attend the Goldsmith college, in the beginning of the Young British Artists movement.
Today Koushna is a successful artist living in London. Her work addresses the relationship between West and Middle East, Iranian identity and women issues. It is based both on memories and personal experience, but also discusses past and present politics of her native country. She considers art therapeutic for both the artist and the viewer. In this interview we talk taxidermy, orientalism in art, Koushna’s artistic process, her struggles to accept her Iranian identity and her final decision to embrace it.
Here’s the link to the interview
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