By Ayesha Munawar
The ‘elephant in the room’ is an idiom that refers to a large or difficult topic that a group is avoiding. New UCSB faculty artist Iman Djouini created a piece of public art based on this notion called the ‘Light Elephant’ because she wanted to address the thorny issues under the surface in American life, drawing viewers into a situational context to awaken their senses.
Djouini and a collaborator in 2018 positioned a 16-foot plastic, white inflatable elephant around the city of Baltimore in key public spaces for anywhere from four hours to 24 hours and documented the scenes for digital distribution. The elephant was strategically placed in front of mansions, police departments, elementary schools, and lakes, to create a conversation about the metaphor.
The pairing of the idiom, the ‘elephant in the room’ and the inflatable elephant was to make visible how art speaks to people, said Djouini, who joined UC Santa Barbara’s Art Department faculty this fall as an assistant teaching professor in book arts and intermedia.
Djouini talked about this and other projects last Thursday as the first speaker in the department’s Fall 2020 Remote Art Colloquium that runs for 10 weeks. Over 200 faculty members and students tuned in to a live Zoom lecture to hear about the thought processes behind the creation of her works.
“I am always observing, and I write those observations down. I document them somehow, and for me personally, it’s using a sketchbook,” she said.
Djouini is an interdisciplinary artist from Algeria who works primarily with digital media, on themes of politics, and culture. Her past work has also been exhibited in France, Japan, and Mexico in addition to the United States.
Djouini and her collaborative partner Jonathan Taube, an architect from Baltimore, came up with the ‘Light Elephant’ idea together. Djouini believed that people would come across this piece and share it on their own social media platforms, publicizing the artwork and sparking conversations on racism and the lack of representation for the Black community.
Placing the elephant at an elementary school was to play with the idea that children often view the elephant as a symbol of wisdom. Although children are young, they tend to notice things more than adults, Djouini said.
Similarly, placing the elephant at the police department was to spark discussion about racism, an elephant in the room that many fear to confront directly in our society, Djouini said.
Iman Djouini also discussed her interest in flags: what they are meant to represent versus the way they are popularly viewed. “Flags are typically viewed as stable images of unity,” she said. For her, those highly symbolic “images started to blur.”
She started to break down the color compositions of various flags and created her own versions as a challenge to countries that lack the unity their flags depict. For example, she took Egypt’s flag and digitally photoshopped the eagle at its center and placed it on multiple corners of her new flag. At the same time, she broke up the flag’s colors to symbolize distress.
Below is the link to this Thursday’s Art Colloquium talk featuring Alex Lukas, who works in expanded print and publication. He is another new assistant professor in UC Santa Barbara’s art department.
Ayesha Munawar is a fourth year UCSB student majoring in Communication. She is a web and social media intern for the university’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.