Naziha Mestaoui

Naziha Mestaoui (1975 – April 29, 2020) was a Belgian artist trained in architecture, who lived and worked in Paris. She worked both collectively (LAb(au), Electronic Shadow) and individually, and received awards in several countries. As an environmental artist and activist, she was best known for One Heart, One Tree at the United Nations Climate Conference (COP21) in December 2015. The participatory art installation supports reforestation on several continents.

Her work attempted to bridge "the virtual and reality, technology and nature, as well as what is visible and invisible."

Early life and education Mestaoui was born in 1975 in Brussels, Belgium, to a Tunisian father and a Belgian mother.

Collaborative works

LAb(au) Mestaoui was a co-founder of LAb(au), an artists group in Brussels, Belgium which explored the impact of advanced technologies on art, from 1997 to 2000.

They worked on a wide variety of projects including wearable computers (interactive i-skin) and immersive and interactive environments.

In works such as Warm and Cold, (2005) they used tactile sensors and chromic materials to develop haptic user interfaces in which people interact with images to control the surrounding space, transforming the boundaries between space and image.

At the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence in 2011, their solo exhibit drew more than 35,000 visitors.

For the 4th Biennale of Moscow in 2011, they worked with the musician 2square (Stephan Haeri of Télépopmusik) to create the interactive piece Chaos Theory. The work was presented at Galerie Iragui with the support of the French Embassy in Moscow.

Their permanent light installation Résonances was created as an interactive skin for the outside of the FRAC Centre in Orléans, France, which opened on September 14, 2013. As joint winners in the competition, they worked with architects Jakob + MacFarlane who created the prefabricated tubular structure known as The Turbulences. By placing diodes on the structural lines of the anodised aluminium casing, Mestaoui and Kaci created a real-time "interactive ‘veil of light'" that is responsive to local climate and environmental data.

Independent projects Naziha Mestaoui also worked independently. Her work was featured in a solo exhibition, Au-delà de l’invisible (Beyond the invisible), at Espace Krajcberg in Paris in 2014. Her works explored the place of humans in the world, both tribal and modern.

Echoing Bodies The 2014 interactive installation Corps en résonance (Echoing bodies) generated sound and light displays in crystal bowls filled with water, in response to the movements of visitors. The installation was inspired in part by Tibetan singing bowls. As a bowl moves, it vibrates, moving the surface of the water and producing harmonic frequencies that can be both heard and seen. An early version, entitled One Beat One Tree, was presented at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in 2012. A heartbeat sensor on the smartphone gathered data that was used to generate a unique digital tree, that was then projected onto the building. 52,677 trees were created during the six days in which the participatory art project was displayed. Plans are underway to take the project to other cities around the world.

Awards 2014, Prix COAL, art et environnement 2014, Prix du jury à La Biennale De L’UMAM pour l’oeuvre Corps en Résonance 2005, Trophée Laval Virtual, Grand prize in the Category Architecture, Art and Culture for H2O 2004, Prix Ars Electronica, Honorary Mention in interactive art for 3 minutes 2004, Trophée Laval Virtual, Art and culture for the installation Ex-îles 1999, Prix de la Brique belge et Tech-art prize, prix de la chambre des ingénieurs flamands for Lightscape(s) 1997, 4ème prix, Concours d’urbanisme, Cultural capital Thessaloniki