I was very affected by the “epidemic” of crack consumption which massively affected the inhabitants of the suburbs in the 80s.
Making things complex is very important to me and it’s political. I revolve a lot around the question of homage. Often, when we want to pay homage, it’s to “exemplary” people, those people who “deserve” recognition. Behind the figure of the alien too, I was very affected by the “epidemic” of crack consumption that massively affected the inhabitants of the suburbs in the 80s. Today, we don’t realize it, but thousands of people died from it in silence, and it affected a very particular population. In the Bondy cemetery, there are entire families who are buried because of crack and heroin.
One of your paintings exhibited at the IMA represents a journalist who asks you to speak “as a Maghrebi woman” and your self-portrait answers “pardon?…”. Can
In recent years my work has often started
with a simple sentence, in the course of a discus
sion, something I hear on TV or something else. I was tired of being constantly put in a box. That’s why the person represented has a terminator arm, a pectoral, and a cat’s eye. Obviously this person is difficult to define and that doesn’t stop the journalist from putting her in the “Maghrebi woman” category.
You can never just be you, you have to be “you plus a bunch of stuff” you didn’t ask for
This is a situation that all children from different diasporas experience. You can philippines phone number library never just be yourself, you have to be “you plus a bunch of things” that you didn’t ask for. What does a Maghrebi woman mean in the collective imagination? We rarely imagine a black woman or a Jewish woman for example. That’s what I like about the alien too: you can’t put it somewhere and therefore prevent its actions. Defining means keeping control over people and reassuring yourself.
How do you live financially?
During the Beaux-Arts in Marseille, I had the chance to meet my gallery owner Anne Barrault, and so it was a security when I left. What helped me was to always do things outside of school when I was there without counting roundtable prosecutorial discretion at the icc; spanish international legal podcast on anyone. I started to do exhibitions with various collectives in France, but also in Switzerland or Belgium for example. That’s how I created a network of people with whom I share questions. When it’s not selling paintings, I also organize workshops adb directory with children in colleges. All these things add up and I manage to live thanks to that.
What would you say to Neïla the schoolgirl?
I would tell him not to underestimate himself, to love himself despite family, school, not to believe what I am told about intelligence, about beauty. I hate school in general. It is one of the most dehumanizing places that exists for a child. When I arrived at the Beaux-Arts, I was “lucky” to have a pessimistic view of the school system so as not to fall from a great height. My entire schooling was a constant fight to defend my work.