We caught up with artist and multidisciplinary designer Toufan Hosseiny to ask her our Top 10 quick fire questions.
Toufan works with different materials to create a universe inhabited by imaginary characters and narratives. Her work revolves around the anguish of being watched, the search for identity and the obsession to repeat the same gestures over and over. The characters and masks that she creates – monsters that haunt us, monster memories, monster places, monsters that we worship – are born of an interaction sometimes alarming, sometimes playful, with a world filled with beings and objects, that surround and observe her.
Toufan launched her brand of accessories, Phénomène, earlier this year.
Here is her Top 10:
My favourite place to be is
The mountains. Alone. In the middle of nowhere
My favourite object is
Something I can transform
The last exhibition I visited was
Van Gogh and Britain, and Frank Bowling at Tate Britain, and ‘Cryogenic Sleep in Full Colour’ by the artist Lisa Vlaemlink at Rodolphe janssen, a Brussels based gallery. But the ones that inspired me the most in the past few months were ‘Swans’ by Nicolas Deshayes at Modern Art, Franz West at Tate Modern and ‘Facecrime’ by Jonathan Baldock at Camden Art Centre.
I’m currently reading
I’m always reading a few books at the same time. At the moment I’m reading Extinction rebellion’s book, 1Q89 by Haruki Murakami, Future Sex by Emily Witt, and Ways of Curating by Hans-Ulrich Obrist.
I’m currently watching
The new season of Twin Peaks, Fleabag, the new Stranger Things, Big Little Lies.
And the one I never stop watching, Seinfeld.
I’m currently listening to
My favourite, for the past 5 years, is Kevin Morby. I also really enjoy listening to Mac Demarco, Devendra Banhart, Molly Burch, Ezra Furman, Courtney Barnet, Artic Monkeys…and the ones I’ve been listening for a long long time are Chet Baker, PJ Harvey, David Bowie The Strokes
My favourite app/website/Instagram account is
I don’t think I have any. There is just too much out there.
The last restaurant I went to was
Littleduck Picklery in Dalston
My dream project would be
Collaborate with artisans around the world to create a gallery of art objects. I’ve been working in collaboration with Kisany Africa for two years now. Kisany is a Belgian brand who has been created to support women in Africa, by training them to be embroiderers, giving them a job and a stable life. I’ve already designed two cushions embroidered by a wonderfully talented woman based in Kigali. It just gives another value to my work.
My favourite thing about my job is
That I can tell stories, whatever shape it takes.
To see more of Toufan’s work, visit her website and Instagram.