Meriem Bennani

born in 1988, in Rabat, Maroc
lives and works in New York, États-Unis


2018_acrisouverts_02

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_01

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_03

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_04

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_20

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_17

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_15

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_11

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_07

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_09

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

2018_acrisouverts_06

Meriem Bennani, Siham & Hafida, La Criée centre for contemporary art, Les Ateliers de Rennes – biennale of contemporary art, 2018

photo: Aurélien Mole
courtesy: the artist and SIGNAL, New York

Siham & Hafida, 2017

video installation , 30 min

From New York, where she has been living for several years, the artist re-stages images and snapshots about the culture of the country of her birth, Morocco, showing an interest mainly in the place of women and the way they have been appropriating musical and sartorial customs.

Famous in Morocco, Siham and Hafida had never met before M. Bennani decided to make them the two leading actresses in her film (2017); Hafida, the eldest, is a dedicated chickha, a popular singer in the oral tradition of the Aïta. This musical style with its irreverent lyrics about the colonial society set up in Morocco in the late 19th century usually went hand-in-hand with important events, and represented a call for freedom.
Today, this tradition still endures but through new figures, like the young Siham, whose performances are widely informed by the Internet and relayed on the social networks. Like a docu-fiction, M. Bennani films Siham and Hafida with all their distinctive and differing characteristics, questioning, alongside them, the changes in local traditions and their methods of transmission by the yardstick of globalization.

In the La Criée exhibition space, the film breaks up into a whole host of projections within which the narrative diffracts and sometimes has fun with the appearance of animated effects; here a crab, there a butterfly, teasing the convictions of the two protagonists.


Jean-Marc_Ballee_01

Exhibition

À Cris Ouverts

Meriem Bennani

from 29 September to 2 December 2018