9 Questions with Raom&Loba - Magazine Issue03

Raom&Loba is multidisciplinary artists collective from France featured in Al-Tiba9 magazine ISSUE03, interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj about their project STEREØTOPIES.

A duo, collective artists. They work “microfictions” fragments that highlight aspects of human nature by making them symbolically visible. Their work is rooted in the margins of reality where, for them, fiction is the best way, to tell the truth about the ecological perspective by renewing the cultural references of our society to understand the interdependence of Man/Nature, to grasp the environmental issues and to transmit them while integrating the aesthetic, creative, imaginative and sensitive dimensions specific to their universe.

Please describe the intention behind your art. How do you successfully express this intention?

When we started the project titled STEREØTOPIES (solid place), we wanted to work on the thematic of solid water forms and climatic changes. The icebergs are as big as the mountains, and we can not create them nor dominate them. They appear and disappear, they are moving and are in permanent creation and destruction. They are made of pure water, one of the most precious materials on our planet. Water in a paradoxical state: solid water. This paradoxical state and the transitory character that gives it that particular form, its individuality, and also provides the ability for this water mountain to float.

Can you talk a little about your formative years as a collective artist?

Raom: We were both individual artists, and each of us coming from a different background. Loba is a graphic designer. She used all the image retouching programs daily, which was very unknown to me. She has a strong literary background, and I am strictly visual as I studied painting and illustration. While living in Paris as a painter, art was frustrating for me and solitary.

Loba: While searching an issue to that crisis and having a life together, we began to collaborate on several projects. Those transition times, between individual and collective work, were complicated but fun. We started to experiment with a lot of different things until finding a space that was rich, neutral, and new for both of us to explore these new territories.

Was there a crucial moment when you decided to follow together with your path as artists?

Loba: I think it was at the moment when we realized that we could make use of photography but in our own way. We saw it could be part of the solution, as it was the most dynamic media at our disposal, we noticed that it perfectly adapted to our ideas due to its flexibility and immediacy.

Raom: Yes, I think at that moment, we also realized that we can learn even new things in the future and integrate them into our collaborative work. This new identity as a new artist was a kind of liberty zone, where everything was permitted and possible. We felt smarter and more reliable, with the right energy of a constant emulation.

Can you tell our readers about the process of making your art?

STEREØTOPIES creative process combines regularly and carefully the real and the virtual, the manual and the digital, sculpture, painting, and photography. We started making hand-carved models, monochrome sculptures, in a material whose surface is intentionally left raw. The reduced scale and the advanced stylization evoke the aesthetic made of "polygonal facets" of 3D models, but the imperfections, gestures, and the imprint of the tools are left visible. It is not the reality but an imitation of it: ephemeral sculptures that are meant to act as concrete fictional objects. The "icebergs" are represented in its entirety, the visible part, and submerged the part, separated by a thin line of water.

We also make a complete 3D scan, like miniature. Then, we fabricated entires, arctic landscapes. They are pure low-tech traditional studio photo shootings. Voluntarily we do not give explanations or scale indication. There was no time references or human presence, but at some point of entry into the composition, it invites everyone to choose their scale to visit these counter-spaces in the margins of reality.

Do you have a favorite photograph or painting, which inspires you?

It is not easy to specify!! Generally, the sources of our inspiration are very eclectic, classical paintings, science fiction films, music, and other artists’ works… for example, the surrealists, or the kinetics, but also graphic design and even nature-based art and land-art.

How do you show your project “Stereotopies” in an art exhibition?

Our last solo show was a «carte blanche,» that’s to say, that we could take possession of the entire exhibiting space. This permitted us to modulate the reading of our work and show the huge icebergs portrait on the wall, and close to it, a tiny 3D printed miniature of the same iceberg. In other rooms, we exhibited icebergs portraits, landscapes, laser engraved drawings, and mirror installation.

What advice would you give to a young artist following in your steps?

This is a delicate question. We would suggest a strong will and firm motivation.

Roam & Lola, in three words ...

Aesthetic, Miracle & Art.