In this new series, Aïda Muluneh pushes her inquiry into the meaning of the image in the twenty-first century even further. What message can one carry today? Is art a space for societal debate and conflict resolution? We are not speaking here of global conflicts, which fall under the responsibility of others, but of the inner conflicts that punctuate our daily lives like Socratic enigmas—inviting us to reconsider certain realities. Artistic creation, when it deliberately situates itself within acknowledged fiction, may be the space best equipped—if not to provide answers, then at least to pose questions whose roots are too abstract to be resolved by reason alone. Art thus becomes a mode of access that relies not only on intellect, but on emotion and the senses. Rather than theorising, art suggests.

This series of images operates as a double act of focus. First, for the artist herself, who offers the result of a journey spanning several decades, exposing—without unnecessary modesty—her questioning of both the medium and the world. I am particularly drawn to the double meaning of the expression mise au point, so dear to photographers, as it signifies both “adjusting the sharpness of an image” and, in common usage, the clarification of a question. Muluneh has always maintained a social consciousness in her work, one oriented outward. Her universal message addressed major issues confronting the world, particularly misunderstandings and prejudices faced by Africans and women. Her work could be described as societal, in the sense that she positioned herself at the edge of the phenomena she chose to explore.