Wafaa' Najihah Binti Mohd. Halim
0319770
Brief Profile
Mariyam Shany Ahmed also known as Manje is a Maldivian self-taught artist who has been living in Malaysia for the past seven years to chase her dream of becoming a successful artist. Her biggest inspirations are derived from various childhood fairytales, mythological creatures, nature elements and also fantasy artworks from well-known artists all around the globe. Manje has been a member of the Malaysian and Maldivian art community. She also had participate in numerous exhibitions, art bazaars and collaborated shows in both countries, Malaysia and Maldives. As for now, she is currently working as a designer consultant, mural painter and freelance artist.
The Progression
On the same day we interviewed Ajim Juxta, 22nd November 2014, my group mates and I had an interview session with Manje as well. Actually, we met Manje when we visited the exhibition, The Untamed Bloom in NSTP, Bangsar. Too bad, we did not manage to talk to her because she was interviewed by the press at that moment. On the bright side, the brochure that we received from the exhibition has her contact details. So, without hesitation, I emailed her whether she is free for an interview and she said yes - yay!
On that particular day, at first, we met Manje at White Box, Publika. It was too noisy at that moment, so we decided to change the venue. We set up and sat down in front of Ajim Juxta's gallery. Once again, the audio was bad due to the noise pollution. So, we asked Ajim's permission to use his gallery for our interview session with Manje. Luckily, kind-hearted Ajim let us use his gallery - thank you! Then, we proceed with our interview session indoor. As for this session, Shu Ling, Yanlin and myself were the interviewers while Serra and Imani were in charge to film our conversation. Manje was nice and lovely as what I expected. Even though we started off awkwardly but we managed to overcome our awkwardness and nervous feelings. We had no difficulties while interviewing her even though we used my phone as the voice recorder because we did not manage to find CR2 battery for the microphone anywhere. It was nice to get to know Manje and her artworks more in depth.
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| a group photo with Manje after the interview |
Analysis
Like Manje, I personally like mythical creatures like fairies and unicorns since I was a kid - too bad, I am not good at drawing those things. Other than that, her illustrations on nature captivated me the most. All of the works are brilliant and significant. Each and every paintings have their own meaning. Some of the paintings are based on myth history that happened in Maldives but most of them are about the awareness of the current natural environment. It was nice to meet Manje in person as she is very lovely and humble person. Thank you for having us, Manje and hope to see more beautiful mythical and nature artworks from you :)
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