Danielle Mano-Bella
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Aug 12
- 4 min read
Danielle Mano-Bella is an Israeli-Portuguese artist based in Jaffa. Her work brings together photography, community engagement, and experimental materials to explore identity, connection, and change. She often collaborates with people from different social and cultural groups, creating portraits that reflect shared emotions and lived experiences. In her recent project “Memory Shape,” she works with silk-based biotech materials developed for medical use, combining them with cyanotype printing to create images that shift between presence and memory. Her practice grows from curiosity and lived encounters, shaped as much by movement and dialogue as by material experimentation.
Q: What makes you choose certain communities or individuals to photograph? How do you usually start that connection?
A: The exploration of communities was born out of my lifestyle. A lifestyle that has accompanied me since my childhood; as long as I can remember, I have connected with different people from various groups in society. I was interested in getting to know different cultures and diverse life stories. During my childhood, I attended many schools and places, a way of life that continued to accompany me into my adult years with its dynamism and a kind of wandering. So every time I would arrive at different places, both in my country and around the world, I would meet figures from different communities with whom I interacted for certain periods—sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. However, the encounters with them were always deep and interesting, which is how the connection to the figures I photograph from these communities was created.
Q: Personal history seems to be important in your work. When did questions of identity and belonging become central for you?
A: Since childhood, I have had questions about identity and belonging, especially because I grew up without a relationship with my father and with limited information about him. My grandfather on my mother's side served as a father figure, which led me to wonder what makes a family a family—whether it's the definition or the shared emotional experience.
In my adulthood, I met people from different social groups and cultures, and I realized that the sense of belonging is built from shared experiences and not just definitions. My work explores the connections between human beings, regardless of religion, race, or gender, and expresses our ability to connect with each other and the processes of nature within us and around us.
Q: How did the idea for “Memory Shape” come about, and why did you want to work with a biotech material like SilkIt?
A: The idea for the project and the creation of the Memory Shape technique was born spontaneously. During research I conducted on working with silk worms, I came across an innovative biotechnology research laboratory that studies silk material for the development of innovative biochemical materials for medical purposes. During my time there, the Founder of “SilkIt” (the startup company that develops innovative biomaterials) showed me what products they are developing. This immediately inspired me to explore how these innovative materials could be used to develop an innovative mixed technique through experiments, allowing me to create the works for this project and for other projects I am currently working on.
The owner and research manager of SilkIt was excited about the idea and invited me to join them in the laboratory, and that’s how the "Memory Shape" project and the innovative technique were born.
Q: Your portraits often show a mix of strength and vulnerability. What are you looking for when capturing these emotional states?
A: I usually focus on showcasing human emotional states. Strength and vulnerability are two states that sometimes appear to be contradictory, yet in hindsight, they are so similar and connected to each other. They are born from one another and are familiar to all of us from certain periods in our lives, without differences, simply by being human.
Q: You mention the link between human nature, social development, and the environment. How do you see this playing out in your images?
A: The connection I raise in my works between the processes of human nature, social development, and the environment is expressed in several ways.
First, I choose to work with innovative biochemical materials made from silk, which are living materials that change their form over time. Alongside natural materials, I also incorporate artificial materials and raise questions about the preservation of living states, and whether the natural process includes aging and decomposition.
Additionally, I depict emotional dynamism through the choice of imagery and scenes of the subjects, who come from different social groups. This represents the process of disassembly and assembly of social systems, as well as the inevitable changes in nature, society, and emotional states. I ask questions about change as an essential part of existence, and that it is unavoidable.
Q: How do your experiences in the tech and start-up world influence your art practice today?
A: The experience of working in the world of entrepreneurship and start-ups is similar to research and experimentation, and it resembles the artistic process. It involves an ongoing journey of learning through trials and errors.
Unlike traditional art education, this approach emphasizes personal discovery and creativity, where sometimes things succeed and sometimes they don’t, but each experiment offers new insights.
Additionally, I discovered that different fields such as science, technology, medicine, and art are interconnected, which I explored in a project with SilkIt. Ultimately, I believe that if you have a dream that resonates within you, you must pursue it fearlessly and with determination. While experiments may take time, they lead to precision, just like in all creative processes of life, invention, or art.
