SITE
Bleu regard / Gaze in Blue / الغزرة الزرڨة
Animation
1 minute
Sound: Hamza Siala
Using an archive photograph taken in Djerba in the 1960s, we isolated a child’s gaze, tinted the image in cyan, then created a continuous motion video sequence: a slow, hypnotic zoom in on his eyes, until we dive into the blue pixels, as if into the depths of the sea. A gaze that transcends time and seems to question the photographer… and us, today. Then, the zoom out brings us back to the surface.
This video explores the link between memory, transmission and water – a vital resource, symbolic matter, and interface between the visible and the invisible. The colour cyan evokes both the old photographic technique (cyanotype) and the sea that surrounds Djerba, which is at once nourishing, fragile and changing.
The soundscape combines the slow surf of the sea, a distant breath and a child’s cry, like a reminiscence of this living past.
‘Bleu regard’ is a sensitive attempt to revive a frozen image, to breathe life into it, and to make heard what the archives do not say. It is also a way of questioning the persistence of the gaze — from the child of yesterday to the artist of today — in the face of the transformations of the territory.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
My artistic practice is rooted in the desire to share a vision that is both personal and collective, through site-specific and socially engaged works. Whether through ephemeral installations, photographic interventions, or participatory performances, I seek to open up poetic dialogues in public spaces. From See Jerba to UV Sousse, via Dream City and Interference, I question the memory, identity and social ties that shape our shared environments.
As a committed artist, it is this stance that motivates me to apply today, proposing a collaborative work with a young architecture student.
Mouna Siala
Born in Paris in 1973, Mouna Jemal Siala is a multifaceted visual artist who lives and works in Tunis. With a PhD in Arts and Art Sciences from Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University, she has been developing a committed practice since 1993, combining photography, installations, video, embroidery and digital arts.
Her work has been presented in numerous exhibitions and biennials in Tunisia, France (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, etc.), Germany, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, India, the United States, West Africa, the Middle East and the Maghreb. In 2010, she received the Senegalese Minister of Culture Award (Dak’Art) and the National Merit Award in the fields of Literature and Arts (Tunisia).
Her art articulates the digital, the virtual and the real. She questions personal and collective narratives, intimate and social memory, by multiplying points of view. Her life and her art are inextricably linked.
Her work explores silent transmission, forgotten oral traditions and forms of poetic resistance through language, matter and Mediterranean memory.
Hamza Siala
Born in Tunis in 2003, Hamza Siala is an architecture student at ENAU with a passion for art, particularly photography. His photo ‘Porte des cieux’ was recently published in FOVEA magazine No. 5.
LINKS
mounajemal.tn
https://www.instagram.com/mouna_jemal_siala/
https://www.instagram.com/hamza__siala/