Artist Spotlight | Serene Husni
Do you have any upcoming events or projects that you would like to share?
This year, I've decided to independently produce films and videos. Fortunately, there have been a few good omens. I've received grants from the Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils to fund a short documentary film. The film will be a travelogue for a journey I hope to take this spring. Until then, all I know is that it will focus on the political relationship between landscape and photography.
I'm looking forward to meeting other immigrant women through The Shoe Project, a writing workshop directed by Katherine Govier. It features newcomers who share stories about a pair of shoes, which offer symbolic significance to their experiences of migration and immigration. With the support of the RBC Arts Access Fund, I hope to compile these encounters into a short video portrait. These two projects are both expressions of the diasporic experience - one that I've personally tried to come to terms with for a long time.
What is your creative process like?
In one word - messy. Too messy to be called a process. I try to listen to my intuition in finding the recurring questions in my mind. I don't see myself as a creator. I work in the documentary field, so much of what I do is listen to, and re-tell the stories of others.
How has your style changed over the years?
This is a difficult question because it's sort of existential. I hope that as a person - at least - I have evolved. I think that I have narrowed down the issues that I am interested in and that I can better understand my own technical limitations. I do believe more than ever in the value of collaborating with others as a way to step out of the confines of myself.