ARCHITECT TURNED VISUAL ARTIST

Ieva is a photographer and visual artist who grew up between Lithuania, the UAE and Lebanon where she has been based for fifteen years. We discovered her work , a series called The Trees Before Last recently at the show titled, In Light or Shadow of What Was and Still Is, at Casa Arabe in Madrid.

It is in Beirut where I studied architecture, found my voice as an artist and became a mother. Despite the hard times Lebanon is going through, it’s really hard for me to imagine us living somewhere else - it’s an intoxicating place. Finally, I’m part of a photography collective - Collectif 1200 - as well as the founding member of Digital Fountain.

Ieva, thank you for joining us today, please tell us about your greatest inspirations and influences.

They don’t really make sense as a whole, but I can see how certain works permeate into my own. The first time an artwork made me tear up was when I saw a Dali painting with my own eyes. But in general, I love works that appear to be simple and direct, and yet contain many layers, like those of Andreas Gursky and Studio Zimoun. My regional inspirations would include Mona Hatoum and Marwan Rechmaoui. 

How are the current trends in technology and innovation affecting your work as a creative?

Some of my works are very technology-driven. During my first artist residency in 2016, I worked on my relationship with my smartphone, producing videos, projections, installations and objects. Later, I was obsessed with using instagram as both a platform to build and to exhibit, and I’ve produced 3 works/accounts: @murrsansfin, @20.20.mmxx, @dedicated.to.you.but - I am curious by nature and so new technologies, apps and their capabilities interest me even if I don’t necessarily apply them in some of the projects. I find all of this very exciting even though I’m very attached to primal matters like nature and instinct.

We’d love to hear more about your creative process.

I get easily excited and ideas come to me during the most inopportune times, a lot of them come and go, but the ones that keep recurring, I know that I’ve got to act on them. Often I become obsessed about something, like the trees in Beirut series - the trees before last, that you came across in Madrid - or about a structure or process. I like to try out new media and I often find myself going back and forth between photography and something I’ve never worked with before. I tend to be quite fast and intuitive in my work, and that is often dictated by deadlines that I take on as personal challenges.

What do you think of the art world and how it works in general?

I love making ‘art’, being in the flow, but I really cannot fathom why the art world feels like the complete opposite. As an artist, I’m driven by a search for freedom, both in my personal and professional life, and the art world looms over like a golden cage. On the one hand, you need the connections, the visibility and the sales, in order to maintain your financial and creative freedom, yet on the other, you have to navigate between social circles that don’t always resemble you, deal with the pressure of trending topics or worse, styles, and spend a lot of your time writing proposals or filling out applications that drain one’s time and energy. Some artists do this really well, but I don’t think I fall under this category.

The industry definitely needs to change and the move to the NFT model is quite interesting - it is almost like the digital version of renaissance art patronage. I only hope that this new trend in the digital realm permeates into the still-standing traditional hierarchies of the art world.

Anything coming up that we should know about?

The exhibition ‘in light or shadow of what was and still is’ that is currently on show at Case Arabe, Madrid, may go on the road - but I cannot say more than that. As for my personal trajectory, I will be showing “In Otherland” for the first time this September in Beirut - it is a photo series I worked on for several years, photographing Lebanese expats in their homes abroad. I’m also starting work on a photo book and an urban exhibition of a recently completed photography series that I developed during the Arab Documentary Photography Programme.

What does wellbeing mean to you Ieva- and thank you so much for joining me today.

Wellbeing is a struggle! To me it’s the experience of disconnecting from the daily hustle, be it moving to some music, doing something new or taking a trip to the sea or mountains. I also very much like to just go for a walk around the city with my camera, it’s always an adventure.

Ieva Saudargaite Douaihi