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Before the Strait of Gilbratar became a symbol of the European Union’s protectionist policy towards North African immigration, once solicited, but no longer desired, it was the natural thoroughfare between Spain and Morocco, Europe and Africa. Once a point of departure for vessels setting sail towards limitless horizons, the Moroccan port city of Tangiers is now more like an immobile ship whose cargo of candidates for immigration is left to wander ashore. The Straight of Gibraltar, Tangiers and Tangerines permanent or temporary, inhabitants of the century-old city or recently arrived North African neighbours, are depicted by French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada through photography and video, the former medium often emphasizing the already-stiffened condition of its subjects and the latter hinting at the distant possibility of movement through time and space. Recently the subject of several one-person exhibitions in Europe and the United States, notably at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and The Kitchen in New York (both 2006), Barrada however, produces more than just a photographic portrait or a moving documentary of a contemporary state of affairs. Instead, through a process of indexation of present phenomena and subtle references to a once more forthcoming past, she investigates the complex nexus of mythical, historical, and geopolitical connections that have created the contemporary now. In Colline du Charf, lieu-dit du tombeau du géant Antée, tué par Hercule (2006), a site-specific wall-paper installation, Barrada harks back to the mythical origin of Gibraltar, attributed—like the city of Sevilla itself—to Greek hero Hercules. In the photographic series Jardin Publics(Dormeurs) (2006), Rimbaud’s Sleeper of the Valley comes to mind, as solitary men drabbed in garments from head to toes are seen in individual shots, one outstretched on the grass, another cradled in a fetal position, conjuring up images of dead civilians left as war casualties. In the video The Smuggler (2006) Fanon’s writings about women’s use of the veil to conceal weapons during the Algerian war is given an update, as a Tangerine woman is seen through her illegal journey to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, leading a daily struggle against that pervasive ennemy that is hunger. More than offering a quietly disenchanted glimpse at the state of emergency lurking behind the façade of normalcy, Barrada’s images also deliver a warning: that one-way streets are often also dead-ends. CT |
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