The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art hosts an exhibition on the Moroccan artist

Bouchra Khalili: “Entre círculos y constelaciones”

"Between circles and constellations", is the exhibition curated by Elvira Dyangani Ose and Hiuwai Chu, which is hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona and brings together the projects of the last ten years by Bouchra Khalili (born in Casablanca in 1975, lives and works in Berlin), which include films, videos, installations, photographs and documentary material. Language and speech constitute an essential part of Khalili's research, which she uses as a powerful form of resistance to hegemonic powers. Through a constant dialogue between history and our present, the exhibition reflects on belonging, civic action, political agency and the need for what the artist calls 'radical citizenship'. Her proposals invite us to meditate on the complex relationships between poetry, orality, theatrical performance as a form of visibilisation and the place of those who bear witness to history.  

The exhibition is conceived as a kind of constellation in which the works are interconnected through shared reflections on belonging and political agency. It also makes use of key figures from history and the postcolonial archive who appear and reappear in the artist's work as persistent spectres. In her art projects, Bouchra Khalili explores ways of recovering that which is erased or undocumented in hegemonic history, weaving together first-person accounts that are rooted in the oral tradition as a method of producing history. The very title of the exhibition, "Between circles and constellations", alludes to two key aspects. On the one hand, Al-Halqa, literally 'the circle' or 'the assembly', a centuries-old tradition in Morocco that consists of presenting oral stories in public spaces in which socio-political interests and aspects of popular culture are intermingled. Al-Halqa can also be understood as a metaphor for Khalili's practice: a multimedia production that combines multi-layered and multi-genre narratives, in different languages and dialects, conveying communal memories and stories, both historical and present-day. Al-Halqa also characterised the protagonists of "The Circle" (2023), the sequel to the work "The Tempest Society", which the artist presented at Documenta 14. On the other hand, the exhibition invites us to witness a superimposition of narratives that transmit the memory of communities previously silenced, unrecognised or undocumented.  

An internationally renowned artist, Khalili has exhibited at MoMA (2016), at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2015), the work "Conversation Gardens" at MACBA (2015) and has participated in Documenta 14 (2017), the 55th Venice Biennale (2013), the Biennale of Sydney (2012) and the Sharjah Biennial (2011), among others. She has just participated in the recently inaugurated Sharjah Biennial, and will take part in ARCOmadrid as an advisor, together with Hila Peleg, in the programme curated by Marina Fokidis, in which the Mediterranean will be the central theme. This exhibition dedicated to her by MACBA focuses on the question: Who is a witness to history? This question runs through Bouchra Khalili's artistic practice and is perceived in the multiple layers that make up the projects she has produced over the last decade, brought together in this exhibition: "The Constellations Series" (2011); "The Speeches Series" (2012-2013); "Foreign Office" (2015); "The Archipelago" (2015); "The Tempest Society" (2017); "Twenty-Two Hours" (2018); "The Radical Ally" (2019); "A Small Suitcase" (2019); "The Typographer" (2019); "The Magic Lantern Project" (2022); and "The Circle" (2023). 

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