Mustafa

(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

Mustafa: Right. Let me check. Wellington it's 02:… 02:12 am. My brother lives in the U.S., it's 08:12 am. I've got a friend living in Romania, and it's 03:15-03: .. 15_ pm. So which one should I choose? Just whatever?

Yannick: I think you should choose which one you want to call the most.

Mustafa: When-whenever. Whomever, right?

Amani: //whoever you want//

Yannick: //it's anyone//

[…]
00:00:31-4
Mustafa: Okay. Um… let's try Romania, shall we?

Yannick: Let's try.

[…]
00:00:40-3
Yannick: So, the first question is, who did you call?

Mustafa: Um I called Andrea my friend in Romania.

Yannick: And why did you call her?

Mustafa: (inhale) um … haven't really talked to her on the phone, um, a lot. Usually we just Facebook or send emails—catch up in emails. So, yeah. And it just seemed that it's good timing_ in Romania now .. to speak to someone.

Yannick: And why did you choose the phone and not the letter?

Mustafa: Um, I do write —the only form of writing that I do is writing postcards whenever I'm traveling. I—I'll write a postcard if I'm going to somewhere new, and I'll send it to my friends all over. But that's the only form, like letters? It's been a while, um, that I've written letters. So the phone is just like more direct. You can just like speak someone, get the most updated news and um, have a chit-chat.

Yannick: Could you tell me a little bit about her?
00:01:46-3
Mustafa: About Andrea? Um … busy person, works a lot. She's doing her PHD as well. I finished a PHD in New Zealand. So I've met her about .. 3 months ago, here, in Abu Dhabi, via a friend. And she was just visiting a friend, and so we just went around Abu Dhabi. And—yeah since then we've just been in touch.

Yannick: Do you miss her?

Mustafa: Um … yeah, in some ways, yeah.

Yannick: In which ways?

Mustafa: Um .. well we kind of … a—.. I don't meet uh … [someone walks by] um .. we kind of had really good conversations. I mean, we just connected just-just for the fact that she was doing her PHD and I just finished one. So we just talked a lot about that, and we kind of connected just like .. yeah.

Yannick: Uh, and when you miss her, uh, how does it feel?
00:02:56-0
Mustafa: Um .. not sure I understand.

Yannick: Okay so, let's say this, which is say I'm a doctor and you've never experienced this before, it's the first time. How would you describe it to me? What's going on when you miss her?

Mustafa: You mean this before, or ../

Yannick: /uh, I—experience missing.

Mustafa: 'Missing.' Um, … I don't know. I guess when you miss someone you just feel a bit lonely because you can't know what they're doing? Does that make sense? I don't know. But yeah, that's how I describe it.

Yannick: Great. Uh, and we're at the end of your 5 minutes. Uh, is there anything you want to tell us about yourself?

Mustafa: About me? //Personally?//

Yannick: //Yeah, about you//
00:03:48-3
Mustafa: Um, nothing I just .. usually like helping out people who um, who are into these kind of things, collecting data and things. Just because I have done it as part of my studies once so when I saw you .. I like volunteering for these kind of things (laugh)

Yannick: right. I like people who like volunteering.

Mustafa: (laughing) That's me.

Yannick: Great. So I can tell you now—the project is actually ( 00:04:11-5 description of the project 00:04:28-1 ) and you know, how does missing play a part in your life, for instance. Because you said you belong to 5 .. /

Mustafa: /yeah, 5-5 different countries.

Yannick: So do you-do you find yourself —how does missing fall into that? Does your—because you can only be in one place at once.

Mustafa: (inhale) as I said, for me I think-I think missing just—are you still recording? Wallah

Yannick: Yeah, I mean we just record everything. Who cares.

Mustafa: Yeah. Um, I just feel that when missing—just in case of whatever—it's just part of me that, you feel lonely, and then you just remember something that you connected to, and you just want to be part of .. that point of time. If you know what I mean.

Yannick: yeah.
00:05:09-7
Mustafa: So uh, so missing a country for example, um, I mean—when I miss, some childhood memories in Iraq, or when I miss New Zealand now or something like that—/

SIRI: /SIRI NOT AVAILABLE. CONNECT TO THE INTERNET.

Mustafa: (laugh) Siri's not available. Um, so it's just .. that at-at that point of time, that I'll be feeling lonely here, and present, so I'll be remembering and missing some other stuffs? Other stuff. Do you know what I mean?

Yannick: Yeah, do you think that the—well what other stuff? I should ask, 'cause I shouldn't assume I know.

Mustafa: Sorry?

Yannick: What other stuff? I shouldn't assume that I know.

Mustafa: Um, I mean it's either when you're missing somebody, okay so, I feel that I want to see them, and I —at that point of time it's just because I'm alone, so I just want to see those people again and just .. have .. reconnect with them, or something like that. If I'm missing a place as well it's the same, it's either I'm alone or I'm bored or something like that and you just start missing those places that you want to go to, um, as I said countries, Palestine, New Zealand, Iraq, all of those places.

Yannick: Do you think the loneliness is what causes the missing, or the missing is what causes the loneliness?
00:06:22-5
Mustafa: That's a good question actually. That's a very good question. But I think they're—whatever's triggered first will connect to the other. I mean if you start missing somebody—some people, then you'll probably start thinking about them and then you'll end up lonely (laugh) thinking—at that point of time. Or if you're lonely then you start thinking about other, other stuff, and then all of a sudden you remember people and you start missing certain things.

Yannick: Uh, that's really interesting and super helpful. //Thank you so much//

Mustafa: //Yeah? No worries. // No worries.

[…]
00:07:01-7
Yannick: Great. Thank you so much.

Mustafa:Thank you.

Amani: Nice to meet you.

Mustafa: Take care.

Amani: Bye.


END
Question 1 Mustafa

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