Roman Selim Khereddine (b. 1989) is a visual artist based in Zurich. His work investigates hierarchical and exploitative relationships between humans and animals as a lens to reflect on social and political systems. His recent projects have examined a derelict horse racetrack in New York, the dynamic between a police dog and its handler, and the migration of Moroccan snake charmers who became tent workers in Swiss circuses.
Working mainly with video and printmaking, we discussed with Roman Selim the different ways in which these mediums are produced, preserved, and revisited over time. While his ongoing practice is rooted in research, reading, and the accumulation of material, his project-based work repeatedly requires him to open a new chapter with each invitation or exhibition: beginning a new notebook, a new hard drive, and, in a sense, a future archive. The conversation also turned to the traces left by past sculptural projects, the role of artist books and the library within his practice, and the impulse to collect and keep small objects. At the centre of these questions is an ongoing reflection on how an artist’s work can be preserved without becoming fixed: how projects can be re-edited, recontextualised, and encountered differently over time, and how the methods of looking back at one’s own work can become part of the practice itself.
