10 Questions with Hall'Makwanda

Al-Tiba9 Art Magazine ISSUE14 | Featured Artist

The collective is composed of Julia Hall and Matisse Makwanda, both of whom are transdisciplinary artists. Their individual work led them to explore artistic collaboration in 2016. By pooling their complementary approaches and expertise, they founded a creative space, which they named the VÆNTRAL workshop in 2017. This venture embodied their innovative concept of processing a business as an act of art. The year after, they combined their surnames, "Hall" and "Makwanda" to formally establish themselves as a duo. To date, a few art projects by the collective have received support from the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec (CALQ) and the Canada Council for the Arts (CAC). Their research-creation journey has taken them to Spain and Ireland for artistic research and to Venice, Italy, for the 13th edition of Arte Laguna. In 2021, they deepened their artistic approach by adopting a nomadic lifestyle, seeking to answer the question: how can art be made a way of life? From that point on, the collective has been organizing artistic residencies for creation and production in Canada and internationally.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

HALL'MAKWANDA is an artist's duo with a keen interest in symbolism, experimental languages, and new media. The artist-couple explores the realms of alchemy and active spirituality; each creation serves as an opportunity to delve into the multidimensionality of human existence. Their work aims to aestheticize individuation, presenting it with nuance and sensitivity. Hall'Makwanda's art focuses on illuminating archetypes and journeys - internal and external. Their practice spans a range of mediums, from plastic and digital arts to poetry writing and metaphysics, all the way to relational art and performance. Central to their explorations is the power of transformation, followed by the amplification of freedom.

Their approach is transdisciplinary. This involves "building the ladder as they climb it," which means imagining the story while they produce it or sculpting poems and paintings in multiple dimensions. For their videos, it applies as much for filming and for editing. Mediums are practiced in a rhizomatic and alternating manner, to enhance the intuitiveness of the process and the weaving. Hall'Makwanda seeks to address a pressing contemporary question: How can we art-work ecosystems? Considering, among other things, the crucial balance to find between living beings and artificial intelligence, at the core of their artistic endeavors, audiences experience a rekindling of relationships, transcendence, individuality, and the collective.

INTERVIEW

Please introduce yourself to our readers. How are you, and how did you meet each other?

Hello to everyone, and already — thank you for the attention you will pay to our approach and journeys in art, here in your reading!
We've been collaborating as a duo, more specifically as an artist-couple, since 2016. It took us a while to embrace the name Hall'Makwanda. The concepts of "couple" and "artist" each carry their own set of questions and implications. We navigate both roles simultaneously and have gone through various phases of creation: taming, disputes and battles, trust, doubts, commitment and bravery, fragility and resilience. Our story began in Montreal. Makwanda was showcasing his initial photography exhibitions and was born-raised in the metropolis. Julia Hall was finalizing her professional pastry studies and had been living in the city for two years, after studying visual arts in Joliette — a rural region of Quebec (Canada). While working in the pastry field, she was also delving into evolutionary astrology, where she befriended a woman who also knew Makwanda. It was through her that we met at an art opening. A photoshoot proposal followed, and one month later the cohabitation, then love and the alignment of ambitions.

How did you form Hall'Makwanda? What inspired you to get together, and what is your purpose as a duo?

Our mission has become clear to us now. To craft the artist-couple through the embodiment of ideals, by producing innovative artworks and practising cultural entrepreneurship. Obviously, it wasn't that clear in the early years! Basically, at the beginning, we wanted to create an exhibition together, to present what we were working on at the moment. This is what pushed us to find a workshop, just a few months after our paths crossed. Hesitant to commit to a year-long lease, we considered subletting the space to fellow artists post our exhibition. Now, it's hard to imagine our journey without that workshop. Under this exhibition project, which rationally linked us, deeper dynamics attracted us to each other. We had a burning desire to realize ourselves through art: our quests converged. The synergy between our diverse languages and media appeared as a golden opportunity to both learn from and contribute to each other. We viewed this union as a chance to harness our collective strengths and realize our dreams. We often said that we had great things to achieve together. In all the mystery, fascination, and sometimes fear that this evoked in us, the feeling, after all, helped us persevere through our more difficult times. This call has strengthened and clarified our mission as a duo.

You work both as a single artist and as a duo. How does your approach change when working alone as opposed to working together?

Co-creation is an ideal that can be challenging to achieve, a refinement that has taken us for years and that we continue to exercise. Our transdisciplinary stance has been instrumental in shaping a flexible co-creation methodology. This stance is also important in our individual approaches. In solo work, inclusion translates more into personal agility: "to integrate others within oneself, to reconcile them." It's a way to navigate seamlessly among the various layers of reality that define us, especially when delving into the artistic creation process. From this point, we engage with our vulnerabilities, desires, and aspects of ourselves that aren't necessarily exposed directly to others, as it can occur in co-creative endeavors. It's essential to respect and be attuned to the "process zones" of another artist at work. We must navigate each individual's flows and recognize the space required for both in collaborative work, understanding that it's a unique territory distinct from our own. Aligning on a shared vision is crucial. The duo approach involves merging skills and talents to birth an artwork as a distinct third entity. In solo work, we hone and push our vision, media, and skills. In duo work, we incorporate new skills and media to benefit the shared creative space: a third place. This space is an untapped realm of creation, a true synergy (1+1=3). It's an enthralling journey of discoveries, communication, detachments, challenges, and a spectrum of possibilities that unfolds, charting distinct paths from those in work done alone.

As a duo, what is your creative process like? Do you have specific roles, or do you work together at every stage of the process?

What identifies our roles is our abilities, therefore, what we like to do and where desire and enthusiasm lie. Then also, it's about the specific needs that the common work requires. For example, Julia Hall had to learn how to hold the camera to capture Makwanda, even though he had the best photography skills. Conversely, he was able to further develop his interest in sculptural art and indulge in it more easily, given Julia Hall's plastic practice, which is naturally present in most of her processes. This mix of skills is at the service of the artwork. This is very important, because the artwork pushes us to disidentify from the discipline, and to free ourselves from a circumscribed role, to thus live in the vitality of creation, rather than in the vibrancy of competition. From then on, the other develops new qualities and versatility given the sharing of knowledge, the fertile emulation. This is what we call "sharing the fire." This increases us and brings more pleasure, surprises and play, and gives greater possibilities and beauty to the common artwork. Furthermore, at each stage of creation, we work together, but on different levels. Basically, each of us is always aware of what is happening and where we stand. During the process, through regularly pooling and sharing we ensure that both opinions are heard and considered, and to avoid mismatches in perception or expectations. On the other hand, certain parts of creation rather leave a larger space of solitude for each of us — this is essential.

Do you find that your individual work complements each other, or do you adopt a different approach when working together?

Our individual works complement each other, yes, as we are very different at the base. Makwanda, for instance, cherishes poetry, multimedia, and relational æsthetic. He likes to conceptualize and stage. Whereas for Julia Hall, it's about drawing, sculpture, and painting, then it's often a question of expression, harmonization, or visual identity. That being said, this doesn't prevent a different approach from being adopted when working together: it's even necessary when a work is co-created via Hall'Makwanda. This is different from a context where we must collaborate together on a creative mandate for a third party, where we apply our knowledge in the service of the request. Complementarity is necessary for co-creation, but the inverse isn't so true. Thus, through a collaborative effort on a piece, we birth something novel, giving rise to the concept of a third entity artwork. Sometimes, looking at the final work, it's difficult to pinpoint "who did what." In those cases, there are not necessarily complementarities but rather a form of fusion. So, the creation of a new world where we perceive Julia Hall's and Makwanda's touches, but wherein, ultimately, we see Hall'Makwanda overall. Indeed, complementarity also lies in what one can offer to the other, irrespective of the process's form or objective. For example, Julia Hall was able to greatly develop her writing thanks to the presence of Makwanda, and he was able to deepen his visual sensitivity thanks to the presence of Julia. This is a beautiful gift that the duo brings in everything and everywhere.

Let's talk more specifically about your work, in particular about your work HÉRITAGE. What is the main concept behind this series? And what messages do you want to convey?

The central concept of this particular artwork is the word « conciliabule » (discreet place of gathering), linked to the company for which it was created. Intended for its work space, this artwork aimed to bring together the founders in a symbolic and pictorial setting, to give substance to their human values of hospitality and inclusion. Hence, the gathering space is a place of encounter in its purest form, with water at its heart. This life-sustaining element unites everyone around a shared table: a collective goal. The essence of what the founders envisioned for HERITAGE is thus revealed between them and their guests, reflecting their mission. Hall'Makwanda's implication was to extrapolate this message by also turning the principle inward, which means among the founders themselves (they are a couple and business partners). The mise en abyme of their relationship, which also gives rise to a «conciliabule,» was the premises of a staging. Individual photo scenes of their hands, holding an imaginary calabash, the symbol of what welcomes their guests. Furthermore, what unites them in a realm of intimacy, visible and sound only to them, is a profound and shared faith. The message of HERITAGE underscores the mission they embody and enact in the world, representing the elixir that is alchemized through the very pursuit of this mission. This elixir is the outcome of a Heritage — a selfless gift, wealth in its own right, which multiplies when shared.
The levels of transparency and feelings of "floating suspended" are tangible in this artwork, enhancing the interconnection of distinct elements. The sticks within bear an unseen thread between them, hinting at underlying ties that might not be immediately visible. The wood symbolizes the genealogical tree, anchoring the piece in its roots and heritage. This deconstructed composition encapsulates the essence of the tableau-sculpture, where each component, while unique, blends into a cohesive ensemble.

You work with several different mediums and techniques, from time-based ones, such as video and performance, to more traditional ones, like painting, drawing, and installation. What inspires you to experiment?

To live, apply, and manifest our transdisciplinary æsthetic. Intuitions, concepts, and ideas are æstheticize in our relation, with ourselves, and between us. Stagings are used to transmute immaterial artefacts — moments, dreams, knowledge — into plastic or numeric, mostly in visual material. Then, it's sculpted into artworks through different processes. It's uninhibited alchemy. Like creating bronze or clay from transgenerational memories, revealing gold from bad experiences, and precious wood from raw ritual — psychomagic acts, as Alejandro Jodorowsky would say. That is one of our common inspiration, as Carl Gustav Jung for depth psychology and Basarab Nicolescu for the levels of reality. We extrapolate those metaphysical territories in the workshop or in artistic residency to convert those embodied experiences into art production. Every creation process is an opportunity to actualize individuation consciously — by the subject that we are in a specific time — that nourishes the content of the immortal object: art.

With ÆN SOI, you approach yet another medium, embracing digital art and NFTs. What do you think of these new technologies? Do you think they will have a long-lasting impact, or are they just a temporary trend?

First, we see a dominant æsthetic — cartoon monkeys, for instance — where we don't recognize ourselves, and we think that will change in times to come. It will successfully diversify as society changes and adopts the new technologies behind the phenomena. Even if we don't like the æsthetic, we like the effects and symbols that are cooked. Web 3.0 and the next ones will drastically change the art world, and it has already begun, as photography did in the last century. Was it in the first ten years that we could consider the amplitude of multimedia art? We are optimistic for the future. Art will always stay a sacred place where culture renews its blood. In a more technical aspect, the NFT and digital manners had an impact on our way of presenting video art, namely the loop effect with short duration. It's common to see this in social media and sometimes, but less in art exhibitions. For us, it was the first time we worked with this particular technique, and we embraced what it gave to the artwork. After the excitement of the 2021 public discovery of NFTs and speculative bubbles that are now in decline, we are entering a phase where artists can determine the real purpose of the new art media. At the bottom, NFTs are numeric authenticity certificates, a revolution for the artist's self-representation and self-financing. Clearly, it's just the beginning!

Speaking of the future, what are you working on now? Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or projects you want to tell us about?

All our projects are at their production stage at the moment, while the main one is ÆN SOI, which includes video poems and cinematic scenes. These forms of creation harmonize on the same level, words, images, musical compositions, and performative acts. The visual and the written interpenetrate. The moving images, punctuated by the sounds, support the words. Then, the words move continuously, suspended and propelled by the images — embodied by the environment, the objects, the subjects. The video treatment is poetic in itself, supported by emotion — musical and kinetic. The embedded poem, the lived performances, and the moving landscape are mutually augmented. Concretely, a cinematic scene offers a gentler experience of contemplation, while the video poem suggests a vast and rhythmic journey. Even if we already have ten artworks done for the ÆN SOI series, we need to achieve at least forty others to complete the first chapter of the collection. So we have a few months of postproduction to do. At the same time, we will complete the audiovisual production of the second chapter. In 2024, for sure, we can finally start to exhibit video installations of this project in Montreal, and we will start looking soon for international options.

And finally, where do you see yourself and the Hall'Makwanda project five years from now?

We contribute to different cultural ecosystems around the globe. Exhibitions circulate between worlds and books between words.
Supra-romanticism is a shared daily celebration of the art we experience.

Artist’s Talk

Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.