Biographies

By ArteEast

Spring 2013 | Gallery

Amina Menia’s work questions the relation to architectural and historical spaces, and challenges conventional notions around the exhibition space. Her artworks are a crossovers of sculptures and installations that trigger an interaction of viewers and passersby with socio-spatial configurations. Extra-Muros (2005-ongoing) is a series of site specific installations all over Algiers. An invitation to revisit this city and thus its re-appropriation. It encountered so many obstacles that most of its chapters remain unrealised. Therefore, it intersects directly with its problematic of denouncing confiscated spaces, confiscated memory and lack of freedom. For Chrysanthemums (2009-2011), she proposed a photographic installation in frontal relation with the viewer and documenting useless monuments charged with history. Enclosed (2012-ongoing) is a documentary-based installation that shows how the Algerian artist M’hamed Issiakhem circumvented his commission to “hide” the former Monument to the Dead of Algiers. He encased it in a temporary cement coffering. Amina is currently in residency in Marseille, working on the common architectural heritage of Algiers and Marseille through the inspiring figure of the architect Fernand Pouillon. She has showed her work nationally and internationally, including Museum of Modern Art (Algiers), Cornerhouse (Great Britain), Museum of Contemporary Art (Leon), Royal Hibernian Academy (Dublin) and the National Museum of Carthage (Tunisia).

Mohamed Bourouissa was born in Bilda Algeria and lives and works in Paris, France. His work has been exhibited in many solo and group shows in France and abroad, at institutions such as: the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; the Palazzo Grassi-François Pinault Foundation, Venice; MAXXI, Rome; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; SCAD, Atlanta; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Foto Museum, Rotterdam; the Centro Cultural Correios, Rio de Janeiro; the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinky; the Nikolai Kunsthal, Copenhagen; the Rencontres de Bamako, the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin; KW Institute for Con- temporary Art, Berlin. Bourouissa has also participated in Biennales in Algiers, Berlin, and Venice. In 2013, Mohamed Bourouissa will be exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and in Marseille 2013. In February-March 2013, he will have his second solo show at the galerie kamel mennour.

Yasmina Reggad graduated in History from the Sorbonne University. She is an independent curator based in London, and works internationally. Her recent projects include Ce n’est pas du sang, c’est du rouge with Gohar Dashti and Shilpa Gupta and Mitosis with Jonny Briggs (April-June 2012), both for the White Project Gallery, Paris, 2012. She is also the Director and Founder of the non-profit organisation, Photo-Festivals, for which she initiated and presently curates the artist residencies, development and public programmes. Since January 2012, she is the Programme curator of aria Artist Residency, Algiers. Reggad is regularly called upon to participate in panel discussions and talks for organisations and galleries such as the National Photography Symposium, Sharjah Art Foundation March Meetin in the UAE, Cornerhouse in the UK and Casa Tomada in Brazil. She is a co-founder of Photo Forum Beirut, Lebanon and a member of the curatorial board of Paraty em Foco International Photo Festival, Brazil.

Exhibitions/Projects

Amina Menia

Chrysanthèmes [Chrysanthemums], Amina Menia, 2009-2011
Photographic series (presented in the form of installations or a projection), slideshow of 17 photographs taken in Baïnem, Blida, Dely Brahim, Douéra, El Affroun, Grarem, Koléa, Miramar, Oued Alleïg, Oued Dar El Oued, Port de Jijel, Sidi Abdallah, Sidi Maarouf, Tessala and Ziama. Courtesy of the Artist.

Mohamed Bourouissa

L’Utopie d’August Sander [The Utopia of August Sander], Mohamed Bourouissa, 2012

Dedicated web site, 2012, http://www.statueanonyme.eu

Courtesy of the Artist and galerie kamel mennour

L’Utopie d’August Sander [The Utopia of August Sander], Mohamed Bourouissa, 2012.

Reading performance, 2012, 41 min 13 s. Courtesy of the Artist and galerie Kamel Mennour.

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