In this video, artist Meriem Bennani and curator Elsa Coustou discuss Bennani’s installation 'Soul Crushing', an orchestra composed of nearly 200 animated flip-flops. Their conversation traces the evolution of the project from its first presentation at Fondazione Prada to its new iteration in Paris, highlighting Bennani’s blend of animation, sculpture, humour, and social commentary. Bennani describes how an instinctive fascination with the flip-flop grew into a complex investigation of collective movement, political expression, and percussive sound — drawing from Moroccan cultural traditions, stadium chants, protest gatherings, flamenco, and theories of duende. She and Coustou also explore the work’s technical and poetic dimensions, including its pneumatic system, its treatment of “aliveness,” and the way it transforms a banal object into a vibrant, communal instrument.
“A lot of my work only makes it to its final stage because I trust the silliness to take me somewhere — and if I keep coming back to something, even a flip-flop, there’s a reason. What seems absurd at first often reveals a deeper political or emotional complexity once I start making.”
— Meriem Bennani
