The subject of the German/Egyptian artist Susan Hefuna is people, and all the ways they live, together and apart. This multi-disciplinary, global artist has created drawings composed of the lines and dots produced by dancers moving through crossroads—literally, intersections in London, Stein am Rhein, Switzerland and Istanbul. Video 

In an exhibition in Manchester, UK last year, her intensely experienced drawing practice resulted in a series of Afaz, or crates fashioned of palmwood that are used by Cairo street vendors for transport and display. The show, titled ToGather, an installation of cages that evoked the misery of an abandoned city, sought to distill the story of the journeys of refugees living in Manchester. It was presented in conjunction with the 2017 Manchester International Art Festival, whose theme was “What is the City but the People?

ToGather, 2017, installation at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester. Photograph: Michael Pollard/Whitworth

Hefuna’s Afaz seem to be a logical extension of her drawings for the sculptures shown in her 2016 Cityscapes exhibition, at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago. In the Buildings of Cityscapes, the artist examines the architecture, boundaries, and movement of a city through her intuitive drawing studies that involve walking through the night city, taking in the sensations and perspectives altered by darkness. Hefuna translates her drawings to a sculptural dimension, first in wax, then cast in bronze. These Buildings change dramatically from different vantage points, summing the experience of moving through the urban darkness. 

Drawing for Cityscapes, 2016

The direction of dots and lines established in Hefuna's drawing practice have informed a project the artist recently created for Caesura, a residential tower in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Produced from a series of 13 uniquely perforated aluminum panels, the sculpture creates a screen wall for the entrance of the mixed-income/mixed use structure near the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was built in partnership with developer Jonathan Rose Companies and New York’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, so 40 percent of its micro-units are below market rate. Info The screen was executed by SITU Fabrication, one of the leading proponents of digitally-assisted production of art and architectural installations. Info

Screen for Caesura entrance. Photograph courtesy SITU Fabrication

Susan Hefuna studied painting from 1982 to 1987 and pursued postgraduate studies in New Media from 1990 to 1992. Over the years her works have been exhibited internationally and have been acquired by numerous museum collections. Career highlights include the exhibition of over 300 drawings (created between 2004 and 2009) in Fare Mondi curated by Daniel Birnbaum for the Venice Biennale in 2009; a 2010 exhibition Drawings in the 21st Century at MoMA, New York; and the award of the International Guerlain Prize for Drawing in Paris in 2013. More recently, Hefuna’s drawings were exhibited at Sharjah Art Foundation in a solo exhibition, Susan Hefuna: Another Place at Bait Al Serkal curated by HH Hoor Al Qasimi, March – June (2014). She is represented in the US by Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Info