We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Soude Dadras a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Soude, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

For many of us, our lives have been turned upside-down by the sudden public health emergency, but the fundamental human need to create remains intense, even if it is on pause for some of us momentarily.

In April 2020, the world came together to experience the strangest health emergency of our modern history: the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone faced a new normal, a new reality. The traditional way of living and working suddenly changed, and the isolation and lack of human and in-person connection added up. It was then that I thought about defining an international art project. Yes, countries’ borders were closed, and international travel stopped or was reduced to the minimum, but our art could travel; it could bridge all the limitations.

I urged artists from around the world to join in bringing attention to the power of the human spirit through global creativity with Ongoing Conversation’s international mail-art collaboration project Drawn Together.

Drawn Together is a collaboration of hope, honor, and storytelling for these extraordinary times. This project aimed to record for the world how the creative community persevered through the tumult of change, even though we remained largely apart.

I sent out more than 800 envelopes with pieces of fabric that I hand-printed and an instruction letter with a stamp (only for artists in the US) to artists worldwide, and in total, I received more than 300 fabric squares completed by the artists. I later created hanging quilts to depict messages that I received from artists. The “Drawn Together” project was on view in 5 galleries in countries such as Turkey, Belarus, and the United States, and I am looking forward to displaying this project in more galleries around the world.

Soude, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Soude Dadras, a multi-disciplinary artist-curator based in Georgia. I consider myself a citizen of the world, having lived and traveled all over the globe. I received my BFA from Iran and my MFA from Georgia State University in the US. I am currently a Ph.D. student in art education at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, United States. My art is born from her fascination with the transformative properties of language. I use this passion to show how discarded materials can be given new life. This exhibit is a transfiguration of unwanted materials into textiles that communicate the way data and information are part of our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not.

I have been the CEO and curator of the Ongoing Conversation for the past five years. Ongoing Conversation is a platform for showcasing artists from different backgrounds in venues around the world. Ongoing Conversation’s mission is “to bring together disparate voices in the visual arts through an international purview in order to examine cross-cultural similarities of the human condition”.

I curated international exhibitions that took place in prestigious venues in Japan, Turkey, Iran, Belarus, and the United States.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goal as an artist and curator is to help create bridges between different cultures and traditions through art. I want to take art exhibitions to faraway places where ordinary people don’t have access to quality art and creativity. I want to engage people in the critical thinking, understanding, and questioning process. My dream is simply to go to that faraway village and install shows, even on a small wall, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where one person stops by to see, absorb, and ask questions about the art he sees.

Close your eyes and imagine that when I curate an international group exhibition, I am usually the only one traveling to the venue in person. The artworks are the ambassadors, drawing viewers’ attention to a specific part of the artist’s background, life, and artistic practice. I enjoy watching locals come to the openings, where a new conversation shapes around what they see and understand. I learned for myself how much the meaning of artwork changes based on the geography and location in which I display it. A new interpretation of the same theme and idea is a meaningful addition to each project.

It’s my dream to take Ongoing Conversation’s artists with me around the world, and I’m actively looking for opportunities to find new locations and galleries worldwide. If any of the readers of this interview know of a place or such opportunity, I would appreciate it if they reached out to me and let me know about it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being connected to others and getting to help other artists worldwide to also connect with people around the world.

I think everyone has a purpose in this life, and why do we need a purpose? I came to realize that we are all looking for peace, happiness, satisfaction, and wisdom. But most of the time, we are looking for that in the wrong place. Peace, happiness, and satisfaction come from within. I believe that the most important purpose is getting to know ourselves, the real one, and everything around us, which helps us get closer to that real one within us. I am known as a person who works or helps others among my friends. By helping others and by creating bridges between people, I find peace and gain the wisdom that I need to understand my life purpose deeper.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ongoingconversation.art/
• Instagram: @ongoingconversation.art @soude.dadras
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soudedadras/

Image Credits
Dzina Danilovich @dzina_danilovich Sara Dadras @sara.dadras