Aya

(Abu Dhabi Art Fair, midday - 23/11/2013)



In addition to this, I am also comfortable sharing the following item(s):

[ ] The city of residence of the recipient of this letter/phone call
[ ] The recorded audio of my 5 minutes of questions
[ ] Incidental recorded audio (conversations had, questions asked, enthusiasm expressed outside of the official 5 minutes
[] The transcribed text of my 5 minutes of questions
[X] Complete and utter faith in the artist





[…]

00:00:00-0

Yannick: uh, my first question - who did you write to?

Aya: It's my friend in Germany. We've never met. We've been pen pals for —25 years? 20 years. Yeah.

Sister: Even with the email she's/

Aya: /Now we've started, uh, facebook-ing. (laughing)
00:00:20-8
Yannick: So why did you choose to write to her and not to call her?

Aya: Uh, I don't know where she is now, she might be occupied. And I'm a writing person; I don't like to call people much. I do—I prefer writing messages, emails, even at work I don't like to communicate uh face to face with my management or collogues, I prefer emails. To keep myself on the eh safe side.

Yannick: hm. Uh, could you tell me something about her?

Aya: About my friend?

Yannick: yeah
00:00:57-8
Aya: (tsk) She's um, she's a nice person. She's very funny. She's a, outgoing, and she's a positive person. She's never said that she was angry or sad, so .. whenever I received her letters—those days there were no emails—I was_ happy reading. And uh, English is not my first language, and to be able to write back to her and communicate with her, I struggled or I did my best to learn English. So it's like an educational part for me, and I appreciate it.

Yannick: How did you become pen pals?

Aya: Uh … uh I was a fan of 'New Kids on the Block'—the band—and uh, there was a magazine, "Just Seventeen Magazine," yeah. So I was looking for pen pals who shared the same interest in 'New Kids on the Block,' so, since then we've continued together.
00:01:58-4
Yannick: That's so cool

Aya: (laughing)

Yannick: And you said you've never met her?

Aya: Never.

Yannick: Why are you separate? Why have you never ../

Aya: /Because she's in Germany, and I'm here. I've been to Germany but uh, my trips were not really planned so I didn't get the chance to meet her. But every year we plan to meet next year, and apparently this year it will happen. End of 2014 she's coming here. Although, last night I was checking her Facebook account and I saw that she was engaged. Engaged, married, pregnant, she won't come (laughing) .

Yannick: (laugh) And uh, you've never met her, but do you—do you ever miss her?

Aya: mmm—ya. Ya. I-uh, —when I see her pictures on Facebook, I feel like my eyes tear up, like "aw, when will I meet her." And yeah, I do miss her. She makes me positive.

Yannick: And how does that feel? When you miss her. So, the example I always use is say I was a doctor, and you had never felt this feeling before. How would you describe it?
00:03:04-4
Aya: (tsk) okay ..

Yannick: yeah

Aya: .. it's a difficult question.

Yannick: I'll-I'll give you a second [to think about it?] because we're waiting for this to pass by.
[cart passes loudly]

Aya: Okay missing is something psychologically. And, it's like love, it's like hate, that uh, so many—even psychologist couldn't identify it in a proper way, or in a.. like a scientific way. they say that in love for example, you love certain person because of his look or her look. It reminds you—subconsciously you have that picture in your brain so you think you love this person. 'Cause this person is related somehow to a good memory in your past. And it's the same with hate—hatreds. If you have a-a tragic me—a sad memory, and then you meet a person who's similar to that person in that memory, you will hate this person without even knowing the reason. For me, missing her is missing the feeling I received from being happy when I'm communicating with her. So this is my translation to the missing part. I'm not sure if this is correct or not, but I think this is how it is.
00:04:28-3
Yannick: And so what do you do when you miss her? How does one // cure//

Aya: //I go// I chat with her. I text her. um, I send her new photos to see how I look like nowadays, and .. 'cause I was very thin, and I had very long hair, and I was very pretty—beautiful (laughing) so I let her see the reality now (laughing). (inhale)

Yannick: Uh, so that is basically the end of your 5 minutes. Just to wrap up, is there anything you'd like to tell us about yourself? Who are you?

Aya: Who am I?

Yannick: yeah
00:05:01-3
Aya: I am Aya. (tsk) Uh ../

Sister: /.. a mother/

Aya: /I'm a mother of 5 years boy. Handsome boy. Without a father. Uh.. I would love to be a public speaker a motivator a coach, life changing person. (tsk) Um I'm working hard and I'm studying hard to-to reach that point. It's my five years plan, hopefully I will reach. And I'm the coach of my own sister, she's an artists/

Sister: She has a successful case with me.

Aya: Yeah I have a very successful—she's on TV, NBC 1, for UAE Nationals who were sent to Philippines.
00:05:35-0
Sister: /to do a bachelors

Aya: She was my project and I'm done with her now.

Yannick: (laugh)

Aya: You're welcome if you want coaching (laughing)

Yannick: Wonderful thank you so much.

00:05:46-3

[…]

END
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