Fouzia Marouf: What is the genesis of the solo exhibition DE FIL ET DE RENCONTRES?
Marion Boehm : Yasmine Azzi-Kohlhepp and I have already built up a close relationship through intensive exchange. We are two women who complement each other because we spontaneously tick similarly and can get excited about the same things.
What connects us, as well as the curator Fouzia, is that we are committed and courageously interested in people from different cultural backgrounds. We have lived on different continents and got to know many cultures. Despite all our differences, we have always looked for connecting elements that serve as a starting point for new encounters and run like a thread through our lives.
F.M: Tell us about the creative process related to the unique collage that has influenced you for many years and to embroidery...
Marion Boehm : The deep impression that the living conditions of my friends in the township of Kliptown / South Africa left on me led me early on to the use of used and recycled materials.
My initial paper collages have developed more and more into mixed media collages with the discovery of the colourfulness of African fabrics. I love to collect old materials made with subtlety and skill and create new connections in my collages, also from different cultures that meet and complement each other in my work.
F.M: Tell us about your decisive meeting and fruitful collaboration with Roger Moukarzel...
Marion Boehm : my galerist drew my attention to Roger's portraits because she saw similarities in our work, which was then confirmed.
Roger is a photographer with a feeling for tolerance, diversity and beauty. He is able to tell stories through his photos. Because his portraits of strong, beautiful women appeal to me, I like to pick up the thread and make further stories out of them with my collages. I leave it up to the viewer to spin them further for himself....
F.M: Are the titles of your portraits a "clue, allowing us to guess the character of the work"?
Marion Boehm : The titles of my pictures are usually first names. This is how my portrayed characters introduce themselves to the viewer so that they can continue to "talk" to each other on a personal level.
F.M: What mediums or art forms do you like?
Marion Boehm : By far the most important is collage with many materials that, against the background of their history, encounter other cultures in the composition and yet produce a symbiosis. But photography is also important to me because it is able to capture very special expressions, moments of an encounter in portraits.
F.M: Under what conditions do you create?
Marion Boehm : "It" is actually always working in me. The process usually begins long before a particular collage, when I collect materials that appeal to me and already tell a story themselves. Fragments from journeys, encounters, literature and documentaries, even music or scents, trigger a process in me that then develops a life of its own and from which I can no longer escape. When I work, I completely switch off from my surroundings and a kind of meditative process begins that guides my hands.
For a long time we look at each other in my studio, the characters and I, and we change and puzzle until we are both satisfied.
F.M: You say on behalf of the sisterhood, "That's why I like to do portraits of women. They are the ambassadors of their cultures. Through my works, the spectator discovers that he can read on their faces, as in an open book, fragments which are as many readings and dialogues which incite to reflection.
Marion Boehm : I have been advocating for women's rights for as long as I can remember. Inspired by the disadvantages and prejudices that have happened to me personally, but of course also by the much greater injustice that is done to many women in the world.
F.M: Would you say that DE FIL ET DE RENCONTRES is federative of a journey, a dialogue woven by the female faces, reminiscent of your peregrinations as a necklace of encounters and links between Paris and other countries?
Marion Boehm : In a way, yes. I love Paris as a melting point of many cultures, especially from the African continent. Plus its ever-growing role as the capital of the visual arts.
I have met many creative people here and have already done a series of portraits of artist friends with roots in Africa who live in Paris. The two portraits of Serge and Barthélémy are ultimately part of this.
F.M: Tell us about the work that represents Barthelemy Toguo?
Marion Boehm : I portray Barthélémy over life-size like a king against the backdrop of his culture. I admire him as a colleague because he is a real role model not only for young artists of his country, to whom he passes on his knowledge, but for a whole generation. He is a traveller between cultures and lives and works both in Paris and in Bandjoun/Cameroon. His project "Bandjoun Station" supports young contemporary artists, is open to all cultures and offers opportunities for exhibitions and artist in residency.
F.M: Today, the south-north dream is reversed: it is the north that goes south. There is an in-between, the north and the south impregnate each other while expressing themselves on the African contemporary art scene...
Marion Boehm : It is precisely the open and honest encounters that are so important for respectful interaction with each other. Art can stimulate this and make an important contribution.
Conversation between Marion Boehm, artist and Fouzia Marouf, curator and journalist
© AYN Gallery
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