The Path II

Path is inspired by a digital project made during the first lockdown in 2020. I always say Art is a pretext. Through Art and technology, 49 people from many different countries and backgrounds were united to share a unique moment of humanity.

During the confinement, what I miss the most was the human interaction.I depicted the words of the French Novelist in Arabic on an artwork that I divided digitally into 49 pieces. Each piece was sent to a person, all around the world. Then at 1 PM EST time, on April 26 2020, everyone logged in with their respective virtual backgrounds on a Zoom call. As the conductor, I just had to synchronize the participants, and shape the final picture, allowing people to enter the Zoom call according to their position on the artwork. Each person was a single instrument playing a solo. Person by person, I could witness the artwork taking shape, and the human interactions that I live when I do my art projects.

I believe we all had this heightened need for social interaction during the weird time we lived in 2020. André Malraux said: ‘Art, is the shortest path from one human being to another human being.I had to trust everyone to do his/her part so we could create the artwork together. Their part was to be on time, have a good internet connection and a laptop. It was amazing to see each person entering the room and to their surprise, being greeted by people from all over the world whether they knew them or not. There was an undeniable comradery that was genuinely endearing. The best part of it was not the artwork, it was the ambience, the energy, and the love everyone shared during the call. This wouldn’t have been possible without the talented Aloe Blacc and Maya Jupiter who performed throughout the call, and the performance of the amazing Dutch dancers Norah, Yara and Rosa.

For over an hour we were all at the same level, in unison, sharing the same human condition. I didn’t realize what was happening until the call was over and the participants left one by one just as I had added them. The Zoom project was a pretext to raise money for a cause bigger than all of us. We are all affected in one way or another by the current situation.

"Art is the shortest path from a human being to another human being" - Andre Malraux