Lydia Ourahmane. 108 dies
Exhibition
From November 28, 2023 to April 1, 2024
From November 28, 2023 to April 1, 2024
Lydia Ourahmane: 108 Days
The Algerian artist Lydia Ourahmane gives a voice to 108 artists and collectives in the MACBA Tower as part of a major participatory and radical work in which everything is open-ended. Actions, talks, screenings and performances waiting to interact with the visitors.
The installations, videos, sculptures and sound works of Lydia Ourahmane address contemporary issues such as migration, colonialism and geopolitics. Inhabiting, gathering, sharing, being permeable…, these are all qualities that infuse the site-specific project 108 Days by Lydia Ourahmane (Saïda, Algeria, 1992) in the Museum tower. The title refers both to the days the exhibition is open to the public and to the number of participants who have been invited by the artist to engage with the space during this period.
108 Days carries an extended city context into the Museum by foregrounding individuals or collectives who form part of its social landscape. These guests have been specifically chosen by Ourahmane, who has lived in Barcelona since 2021. The space is not occupied by any finished artwork, or objects, but by what each participant deems urgent and incisive, with the aim of promoting critical dialogue and exchange with the space, the institutional framework and whoever enters and spends time in it. With this work, the artist presents a significant alteration to the way the Museum normally operates, firstly by leaving this gallery space empty, aside from those elements necessary for the performance of any foreseeable task, and secondly by interpreting the Museum’s commission to produce an artwork by inviting 108 participants. The trust between the artist, the institution, the guests and the audience is what lends significance to the work.
Ourahmane’s praxis poses the following questions: How can the institutional structures and parameters that define contemporary societies be defied? How can vigilance and the impositions of bureaucracy be overturned? How can artworks involve active and effective protests? Through these inquiries Ourahmane brings the personal into the political field and the domestic into the field of history.
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artist
Lydia Ourahmane
Lydia Ourahmane is an artist currently based in Barcelona and Algiers. Many of her projects relate to her immediate surroundings and feature objects loaded with social, political and experiential meaning. She is interested in spirituality, contemporary geopolitics, migration and the complex histories of colonialism. Using video, sculpture, installation and sound, her work is expressed in a very distinctive language. Often using a large or even monumental format, it is invariably rooted in personal stories and experiences, whether individual or collective. Hers is a praxis that asks: How can the institutional structures and parameters that define contemporary societies be defied? How can vigilance and the impositions of bureaucracy be rejected? How can the mechanisms of state control be deactivated? How can artworks involve active and effective protests? Ourahmane manages to bring the personal into the political field and the domestic into the field of history.
Recent solo exhibitions include: sync, KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin; Vendesi, Progetto, Lecce; Tassili, SculptureCenter, New York; Mercer Union, Toronto; rhizome, Algiers; B7L9 Art Station, Tunis, and Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris (2022–23); Survival in the Afterlife, Portikus, Frankfurt, and De Appel, Amsterdam (2021–22); Barzakh, Kunsthalle Basel, Triangle–Astérides, Marseille, and S.M.A.K., Ghent (2021–22); صرخة شمسية Solar Cry, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2020); and The you in us, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2018), among others. Her work was included in the 34th São Paulo Biennial (2021), Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018), the New Museum Triennial (2018) and the 15th Istanbul Biennial (2017).
Selected group exhibitions include: Home Sweet Home, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Risquons-Tout, WIELS, Brussels; and Laws of Confusion, Renaissance Society, Chicago (both with Alex Ayed); Waiting for Omar Gatlato: A Survey of Algerian Contemporary Art, Le Magasin, Grenoble (2023).
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Lydia Ourahmane: 108 Days
1 artists
curated by
Guim Camps 
Hiuwai Chu
Lydia Ourahmane: 108 Days
2 artists
Images
3 images
