For Berlin Art Week, ifa Gallery Berlin, in cooperation with the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), presents the exhibition Display by Sarah Ouhaddou.
In her solo exhibition, Sara Ouhaddou explores the relationship between art and craftsmanship. 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 collaborated with local artisans from Marrakech, deliberately blurring the boundaries between her artistic practice and the work of the artisans in the exhibition. She also addresses the impact of tourism on crafts, shows new ways of working together and reflects on the role of artists and artisans.
Ouhaddou has been working with craftspeople for ten years, for Display she pursued three different forms of relationship between the artist and the artisan. The traditional one: the artist commissions a work. The reversal of roles, in which the artisan commissions the artist, and the partnership, resulting 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 her relationships with the people, materials and objects that surround her. Here, Ouhaddou contextualises her presentation within a broad network of collaborations and influences. On view are objects made of ceramics, jewellery 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 jewellery design.
The idea of cooperation and its possible forms play a key role in this joint project. The exhibition aims to support the artisans in Marrakech in producing something that reflects their world and is not exclusively orientated towards the interests of tourists.
Display is accompanied by a sound installation by artist, acousmatic interpreter and musician Leila Bencharnia. Bencharnia takes up the language of the fabrics and carpets of the Amazigh communities and utilises the mathematics of the African fractals contained in the textiles as a musical notation.
Curated by Meriem Berrada, Artistic director of the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) and Alya Sebti, Director of ifa-Galerie Berlin and part of the curatorial team for São Paulo Biennial 2025.
Display was realised in collaboration with artisans Omar and Ihya Abiad, Mina Hassani, Mohamed Maroufi, Fouzia and Saïd Yaagoub, and Assabirate Cooperative.
The opening at ifa Gallery Berlin will take place on the occasion of Berlin Art Week 2024.
