Nadia Mounier (b.1988, Cairo) is a visual artist working with photography and video. Her work is interested in representations of the self by exploring aspects of privacy, censorship, digital stagings, and body performance within the public and private spheres. As an artist and young curator. she is passionate about modes of collaboration, collective work, and alternative arts education programs. She is part of various art collectives that are interested in the city, image production, motherhood, and politics of representation. She participated in numerous residency programs such as the Goethe Institute fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2018 (DE) and Braunschweig Projects at HBK Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig in 2019 (DE). She is currently based in Cairo where she is managing the Arts and Culture program at The Arab Digital Expression Foundation ( ADEF).
In her open project Cairo Snaps, which started in 2012, she focuses on the idea of ‘public space’ and more specifically on spaces where anyone can do anything at any given moment: the non-private space, the non-privately owned space, space that is economically uninteresting. Photos are characterized by the use of everyday objects in an atmosphere of middle-class mentality in which recognition plays an important role. In a search for new methods to read the city, she often creates aesthetics of the ugliness, her photos search for the human’s presence despite his absence, with regular contact with architecture and basic living elements. Space and landscape are examined in less obvious ways and sometimes developed in absurd ways.
In her recent works, Mounier investigates the pictorial representation of the (Arab) woman in public and ostensibly private contexts. Over a 4-year exploration within her long-term project entitled Was that really you? Mounier finds an explanation of the status of women in both images and real life through the process of reviewing these images, moving them between different contexts, and deconstructing their aesthetics. With a particular interest in forms of self-dramatization but also censorship, she constantly switches between the roles of image consumer and image producer. In a series of self-portraits she channels the aspect of performativity that inevitably arises with having one’s image taken, no matter how ‘private’ the act. she comes full circle to arrive at a triadic intersection of her own relationship with photography in which self-image and external perception are reflected in the motif of motherhood.
Her work was shown at Museum Rietberg, Zurich (2019) and the Museum of Photography, Braunschweig (2012). She also participated in a number of local and international exhibitions and festivals, e.g. PhotoCairo 6th edition (2017) Cairo, The Marrakech Biennale 6th (2016) and “Autonomy of Self” (2015), London. She is part of various collectives interested in the city and image production, amongst them “Cairo Bats”, "EverydayEgypt" and “The Pensive Image”.
ON THE WEB
Mada Masr | حوار مع نادية منير.. منسقة معرض «الأسطورة» فاروق إبراهيم
Mada Masr | أنماط مختلفة من التذكر - استحضار الغياب
Independent Arabia | ٣ فنانات يستحضرن وجوها مصرية نسوية بفن الكولاج
Schloss Post | Was That Really You – On Representations and Image Tagging
Mada Masr | On the politics of the image in conservative societies: An interview with Nadia Mounier
Mada Masr | A letter about a nostalgic art tour: A screening and three exhibitions in Cairo
Mada Masr | MASS Alexandria 2016: A busy and approachable final exhibition
Mada Masr | City Shadows and a DIY toolkit for art in abandoned spaces
Mada Masr | On part of PhotoCairo6: What does ‘art is for all’ mean?
Mada Masr | Third Eye offers insights into young artists' use of images
CONTACT
Email: nadiamounier@gmail.com
Instagram: nadia_mounier
Other links: www.nadiamounier.tumblr.com