Artist Talks: "Display" - Sara Ouhaddou

In the organizer's words:

For Berlin Art Week, ifa-Galerie Berlin presents the exhibition Display by Sarah Ouhaddou in cooperation with the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL).

Exhibition: September 12, 2024 - January 19, 2025
Opening: September 11, 2024, 7 pm, as part of the Berlin Art Week
Artist talk: September 12, 2024, 3 and 4 pm
3 pm: with Sara Ouhaddou and the curators Meriem Berrada and Alya Sebti
4 pm with the sound artist Leila Bencharnia and the curator Alya Sebti
ifa-Galerie Berlin, Linienstraße 139/140, 10115 Berlin

Sara Ouhaddou explores the relationship between art and craft in her solo exhibition. Ouhaddou is a French artist who was born into a traditional Moroccan family and now lives and works between Paris and Marrakech. For Display, Ouhaddou has worked closely with local artisans from Marrakech and the exhibition deliberately blurs the boundaries between her own artistic work and the work of the artisans. It also addresses the impact of tourism on crafts, shows new ways of collaboration and reflects on the role of artists and artisans.

For Display, Ouhaddou, who has been working with artisans for around ten years, pursued three different forms of cooperation between the two genres. The traditional one: the artist commissions a work. The reversal of the role, in which the artisans commission the artists, and the other variant that results in a joint work or project. In the exhibition, Ouhaddou focuses on the creative synergies that result from collaboration and encourages reflection on artistic practices in contemporary art. She questions traditional hierarchies and creates a space in which craft and art coexist on an equal footing and enrich each other.

In the exhibition, the artist focuses on the relationships with the people, materials and objects that surround her. Here, Ouhaddou contextualizes her presentation within a broad network of collaborations and influences. On display are objects made of ceramics, jewelry and glass. A second part of the project will also be shown in Marrakech at the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), where the artist will bring together the traditional techniques she has encountered on her travels, including rubber embroidery, Iraqi glass art, ceramics and jewelry design.

The idea of cooperation and its possible forms play a key role in this joint project. The exhibition aims to support craftspeople in Marrakech to produce something that reflects their world and is not exclusively geared towards the interests of tourism.

The display is accompanied by an acoustic intervention by sound artist, acousmatic interpreter and musician Leila Bencharnia. Bencharnia takes up the language of the fabrics and carpets of the Amazigh communities and uses the mathematics of the African fractals contained in the textiles as musical notation.

Sara Ouhaddou (*1986 in Draguignan, France) is a French artist born into a traditional Moroccan family. This dual culture shapes her practice as a constant dialog. Ouhaddou has participated in exhibitions such as: Moroccan Trilogy, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2021); Global Resistance, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); Manifesta 13, Marseille (2020); Our World is Burning, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2020); Islamic Arts Festival, Sharjah (2017 - 2018); Craft becomes Modern, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, (2017); and Marrakech Biennale, Morocco, (2016).

Curated by:
Meriem Berrada, director of the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) Alya Sebti, director of ifa-Galerie Berlin and part of the curatorial team for São Paulo Biennial 2025

Display in Berlin was realized in collaboration with: Omar and Ihya Abiad, Mina Hassani, Mohamed Maroufi, Fouzia and Sad Yaagoub, and Assabirate Cooperative

The opening at ifa-Galerie Berlin takes place on the occasion of BerlinArtWeek 2024