Lifestyle
9.10.2018
eL Seed : “What matters to people is that we talk about them”
El Seed is a young French street artist of Tunisian origin uses Arabic calligraphy to call for peace and gathering. We met this philanthropist, poet and enchanter of the streets, who set out to conquer the walls of the world in order to bring cultures into dialogue.
There is no need anymore to introduce him. All over the world he is praised as the man who builds bridges between men and cultures thanks to his calligraffitis. El Seed has come straight from Dubai, where he currently has his workshop, to meet us. And it is such a surprise to find him so easygoing and relax! Without forgetting any of his Parisian habits, he asked to meet us in front of one of his most emblematic work in Paris, to give us a rundown of its artistic commitment.
Art is not an end in itself…
El Seed is among the types of people that, upon meeting him for the first time, you feel like you’ve known him forever. And with good reason; today, his works are unavoidable! Remarkable in their often impressive size and their vibrant colors, no one was able to miss, for example, the embelic facade of the Tour Paris 13 that he had tagged in blurred orange.
Tonight was the #screening of #tourparis13 #film at @mk2 Bibliothèque #paris #france
Great #souvenirs ! Here is the #mural by @elseed for this wonderful project #curated by @galerie_itinerrance #urbanart #streetart #paris13 #elseed #2013 #memories #oran… https://t.co/6TJ3roliHL pic.twitter.com/f44ijZFemH— Chilled Out co. (@chilledoutco) 6 février 2018
Unvarnished, and with frankness and modesty, he speaks to us about his art. “I am, actually – I don’t like to say ‘against’, but against the street art which is just for decoration, and we see it more and more”. If he offered in 2012 a pretty facelift to the mosque of Gabès, the city where he comes from in Tunisia, it would have nothing to do with decoration! “O men, you’ve been created from a male and a female and separate into peoples and tribes so that you meet”. This verse from the Qur’an that he tags there sounds like a manifesto. Indeed, what he seeks above all is to give meaning to walls and messages. “Sometimes, what is sad is that there isn’t any story behind, he confesses. What is painted in Paris could be painted in Portugal or in South Africa. I think street art has this vocation to connect people”.
… It is only a pretext
Work is “just a way. It’s a background, while what really matters is what we created with people.” It’s what El Seed experienced and understood along the course of his project Perception, made in Garbage City in Cairo, where he met some garbage collectors. He was surprised with their generosity and their natural participation in the project, as well as their recognition toward the artist for having simply opened a dialogue with them and sought them out. It’s a revelation! “All this, it’s just a pretext. For me what I like, what I like the most in my work, is meeting people, it’s the human experience.”
And across all the works that he has done in the world from Paris to Amsterdam, across all the Middle East and North Africa, from Rio favelas to the border between North and South Korea… eL Seed strove to meet inhabitants and to weave a link between them, with this continuous thread: calligraffiti. To be accepted, his method is simple: he introduces himself “I’m an artist, I would like to paint here.” the people at the start offer you a glass of water and the next day a cup of tea, the invite you to eat, then there’s a relationship which is created, and it’s what arrived.” Without a doubt, his simplicity and sincerity even won us over.
Walls that make people talk…
It sometimes takes him many months to find the relevant message, because what he’s looking for, before everything, is to “break stereotypes” and to fight against the “fear of differences”. Far from presumptions and in all honesty, eL Seed shares his certitudes: “What matters to people is that we talk about them… that we give them importance.”
That’s why he has chosen Arabic calligraphy, it has “this universal dimension which touches people, it touches hearts and doesn’t need translation.” This opens all the doors to him. “The fact of coming to someone’s home and to say ‘I will make a work that speaks of you.”, this touches people and then, they have to accept”. Yet, eL Seed refuses to consider himself as the only master of his works, beside his own teams, he co-creates with the local communities, without ever imposing an idea.”The idea is to share. I like to make people taking part to my work. Sometimes I ask to people to fill in colors”.
So, he has all reasons to be serene! “The fact that the community participates in a work, means it belongs to them, there is this transfer of ownership“, and in return, they act for the preservation of the work, as well as its dissemination.
“What you have to look for, what you have to build, is dialogue. I think that there is a lack of communication and understanding.”
Walls that witness history…
Like his mentor and friend, the photographer, JR, the master of the street made symbols from his media. He carefully chooses them. “I like to find places, which has a story, a texture… especially a story to tell.”
“The most important is to tell the story”.
He regrets that a lot of walls he is proposed to tag are very “sanitized, impersonal, functional. While [he] like[s] an abandoned thing, which has seen life passing and has become a witness of the history of what happened before”. To make walls witnesses and storytellers… This is the theme of his project “The Lost Walls”, which he has created with his team. They’ve all made a tour of Tunisia to meet forgotten communities and to make them visible by painting them on the walls, those silent witnesses. A project that eL Seed would like today to adapt to other countries in the world… When street art becomes memory!
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