The interaction between objects and their surroundings is at the centre of Iman Issa’s work. After studying philosophy, which visibly characterises Issa’s work structured in hypotheses and evidence, the artist, who was born in Cairo in 1979, worked primarily in the medium of photography. Today, her studies mostly take on a sculptural form, with photography, video and the written word forming further constants.
Issa deals with the question of the extent to which the perception of objects is characterised by their geographical, historical and social circumstances: Is an object or is an image at the mercy of the interpretations of its viewers*, so that its meaning is constantly changing? Conversely, to what extent does an object – such as a monument or a historical building – shape memory? This raises the question of whether there are forms that have such a fundamental relationship to their meaning that they are immune to arbitrary interpretations.