INTERVIEW Michelle Michewicz
PUBLISHED 4 AUG 26
As an illustrator Manon Scharstein’s greatest superpower is to stay curious and walk around the world with open eyes. In her creative practice, she inspects everyday life situations closely and translates these into playful graphic narratives that elevate and reflect on socio-cultural themes.
// Which moment of the creative process do you enjoy the most?
I really love the moment (that’s where I am currently at with the project for Djerba, actually) when the basic concept is in place and I can just work alongside my plan. It’s not about to be finished immediately, so I don’t have to worry about details, but the “brain work” is already mostly done and I can just swim in the image world the project opened up for me.
// How do you know when a work is finished?
I am very much not a perfectionist, which can be quite practical to get stuff done. It also means I have limited patience for certain topics or projects. At some point, I really feel my attention and my enthusiasm drift away – sometimes, it means I have to push myself really hard to finish the last bit. But often, that is a good reminder for me to stop – because once the passion is leaving, you start to get lost in the details or get annoyed by the project, and I always try to leave it as long as I still like my idea.
// What conversations do you hope your work will start?
During my process, I dove into the patterns, symbols, and motives used in Djerba – obviously only on a very superficial level, since that was basically my first encounter with the Tunisian culture. Because that frustrated me, I then began to look at patterns, motives, and symbols used in Germany (for pottery, weaving, etc.) – and found out I know alarmingly little about my visual world as well. Nevertheless, I came across some patterns that I know from my grandma’s tableware that evoked in me some sense of home, some emotional connection. Re-interpreting the motives and patterns I found, e.g., in the tile works of El-Ghriba, I wondered about the people having a similar feeling of home connected to those tiles. I think it would be fun if the lanterns make people talk about the image world that makes them feel at home or that they connect to their childhood.
// Can you describe a personal experience that made you think about entanglement?
When I think about the word, I have to think about the countless links that connect me to other people. I just talked with a friend about sayings and phrases that we took over from friends or family members, often because we want to use that phrase to remind ourselves of the person we got it from. Even if that is not a very original thought, I love how what defines us as a person is basically made of all the things we learned or copied from others out of affection – like we are a big messy collage out of little character traits we picked up in different areas in our lives.
// What are you currently curious about?
I am very curious about what I will find arriving in Djerba. It was a weird feeling to prepare an artwork for a place I have never seen before, and I often felt like scratching on the outside door of a culture I know very little about. That being said, I started my “image engine” for the art process, looking at my surroundings for motives and ideas – and in that mode, I think once arrived I will see so much I wanna turn into illustrations, and I am so excited about what will arise from that.