The exhibition by the French-Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili at Malmö Konsthall centres on the power of storytelling and the right to belong to a shared society.
Through film, installation, and photography, Khalili explores how voices marginalised by the borders and hierarchies of the nation state can claim space through the spoken word. In her works, individuals speak in the first person; their personal narratives are woven into a collective experience – a chorus of voices reflecting on questions of community, democracy, and belonging in our present time.
Bringing together works from the early 2010s to the present, the exhibition takes shape as a site-specific whole in which earlier and more recent works enter into dialogue with the architecture of Malmö Konsthall. The circle is a recurring motif: as a form without beginning or end, as a gathering point for storytelling, and as a symbol of equality. Referencing the tradition of al halaqa – the act of gathering in a circle around a storyteller – the exhibition creates a space in which no single narrative is given precedence over another, and where exclusionary structures may be challenged in favour of more egalitarian conditions. Bouchra Khalili is the artist’s largest presentation in Scandinavia to date and her first exhibition in southern Sweden. The exhibition is produced in close collaboration with the artist and her gallery mor charpentier, with support from Institut français de Suède. Support is provided by Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art, Institut français, and Malmö Art Academy.
Kilde:
Malmö Konsthall
Malmö Konsthall