Dear tuffix friends & family,
the days are getting shorter, everything is planned to happen inside and we are looking forward to sharing with you our steps we took in the last months. I, Stephie, have started working for Soufeina in the beginning of this year and I can say: I am happy to work with Soufeina and to experience new interesting projects and ideas of clients and friends of tuffix every week.
A Step Back: Corona – What Else?
Now, let’s take some steps back – what happened with us due to Corona and what did we achieve in the past months? Of course Corona hit us hard in the beginning: Although illustration commissions were not affected, exhibitions, workshops and conferences got cancelled or rescheduled to an uncertain future. With all the unexpected free time, Soufeina came up with the idea of creating a colouring book for children right after the lockdown. The idea was to help them understand the pandemic situation and what is going on around them. We sold a few books and also gave away some free colouring pages. It was a passion project more than a commercial one, as we also donated parts to the Berlin emergency service for child protection (Berliner Notdienst Kinderschutz) and: We learned a lot working on it.
Back To (A New) Normal?
A few weeks later, things slowly went back to normal, well a new normal. We switched from workshops to offering webinars and we accepted projects that were open-air, like the one in Heidelberg: Heidelberg and its cityscape became inconceivable without tuffix comics on power boxes – yes, Soufeina was able to spread comics about the relations between Jews and Muslims, hosted by the Jewish-Muslim Culture Days Heidelberg. See more on: www.jmkt.de
Current Projects
These days, Soufeina is working on illustrations for various organisations. One of them is Shoulder2Shoulder, who reached out from the U.S. to get supported by the artwork of tuffix in achieving more rights for minorities in the U.S in face of the coming US elections. Soufeina also started supporting team red with illustrations related to mobility and innovation. And if you want to see Soufeina’s illustrations printed then grab the new Veto Magazine (you’ll find an illustrated interview with Soufeina).
My Main Learnings
Since joining Soufeina, I have learned a lot more about organizing and re-organizing events. In the beginning, it was about planning face-to-face workshops with Soufeina with interesting discussions, organizing Graphic Recordings and exhibition openings. Then, my learning goal changed: Now, it is all about how to keep up with those mentioned events without physical contact! How can we share the same content and add the same value we were able to share before the pandemic?
And slowly, we realized:
It is possible …
… to offer webinars about “comics and racism”, like the one Soufeina realized with BumF e.V. for young refugees.
It is possible …
… to hold a conference online and have Soufeina do a digital and remote Graphic Recording like she did during the conference “Build Bridges” hosted by TGD
It’s possible…
… to give a talk via zoom, like Soufeina did for the vernissage in Darmstadt, when travelling was not an option.
And For The Future?
We will not stop to realize projects and ideas: Our exhibition will be sent through Europe in a new tuffix travel bag (designed and created by bolsos Berlin. We are also planning to turn the exhibition set into a digital exhibition! And of course lots of fun animation and illustrations projects are lining up, but more on those in a few months!
You want to work with us or you have an exciting idea to share? Don’t hesitate to contact us.
We are looking forward to working with you, creating ideas and making it happen – it is possible!
Soufeina & Stephie
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