” I’m listening to you…! » is an installation made with plexiglass, fabric, chalk, light and motion detector.
– 2013 B’chira art center – Tunis
– 2014 Biennale of contemporary African art (awarded by the African sun center) Dak’Art 2014
“I’m listening …” is an installation composed of a black cube of 50x50x50cm, trimmed with a ribbon of yellow light in its upper part. This cube is placed on an another one, transparent and having the same dimensions, allowing it to give the illusion of levitation and a certain supremacy.
A circle, drawn on the floor and formed by transcriptions of the word “I’m listening to you” in different languages, crowns the installation.
At the approach of a visitor, the light activates, inviting him to confide.
“I’m listening to you … actually demands“, “I’m speaking to you”. But, from where Houda is yelling “Tunisia”, no one seems to listen and nobody can speak. Then the artist decided to create a confessional of the 21st century. A black cube, drawn from the deepest collective memory of the world of Islam, is suspended on a transparent cube whose existence is imaginary.
And we turn around the cube in an endless repeat for many millennia. To this movement of dervish until the trance, the artist replaces Men by words. A single word: “I’m listening to you”, repeated in different languages inviting you at last to speak. While the visitor approach, the light is activated inviting him to a confession, a murmur.
We must whisper in the world our secrets to fill it with us. To make it full of what we are and avoid it being emptied or filled with the horrors that haunt and threaten our freedoms. »Abdelkader Damani
“By repeating the words “I’m listening to you“ a kind of muttering at once sweet and mocking fills my soul. I feel torn and distraught in front of this light, suspended in the air, enigmatic, and exercising on me, an obvious and frightening magnetism. In my head resounds then the wing beats of a butterfly turning around a bulb confusing it with the moon. The fear of being deceived invades me with a bit of doubt … will he listen to me?