SEUM
Mohamed Bourouissa

SEUM is Mohamed Bourouissa’s first solo exhi­bi­tion in Aus­tralia, and cen­tres around the film Généalo­gie de la Vio­lence (2024) which was recent­ly pre­sent­ed in the artist’s exhi­bi­tion SIG­NAL at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

In his mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary prac­tice span­ning pho­tog­ra­phy, film, instal­la­tion, sculp­ture, draw­ing, music, and the­atre, Bourouis­sa con­sis­tent­ly locates the human con­di­tion with­in polit­i­cal and aes­thet­ic dimen­sions. He eschews the doc­u­men­tary gaze, instead empow­er­ing his sub­jects to nar­rate their own lives. The stag­ing becomes an act of lib­er­a­tion, chal­leng­ing pre­con­ceived rep­re­sen­ta­tions to reassert agency.

Généalo­gie de la Vio­lence (2024) explores the inter­nal sen­sa­tions and oppres­sive forces that shape the expe­ri­ence of mar­gin­al­ized bod­ies. By nav­i­gat­ing around and through his sub­jects with haunt­ing flu­id­i­ty, Bourouissa’s lens reveals hid­den vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and resistances.

Bourouissa’s aes­thet­ic approach bridges the real and the vir­tu­al, inter­weav­ing seam­less tran­si­tions between live-action footage and com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed imagery. Using pho­togram­me­try and point cloud ren­der­ings, space and iden­ti­ty dema­te­ri­al­ize. Cap­tured in this dynam­ic inter­play, his char­ac­ters seem stretched beyond their phys­i­cal bound­aries, their bod­ies merg­ing with the frac­tured urban fabric.

While the exhibition’s title evokes a deeply felt bit­ter­ness [1] — a bit­ter­ness born from sys­temic injus­tice and every­day racism – what unset­tles most is a lack of overt resis­tance. Bourouissa’s sub­jects do not fight back. Instead, they inter­nal­ize the encoun­ters, reflect­ing the numb­ing effect of dehu­man­iza­tion. As his pro­tag­o­nist observes, ​“At that point, I stopped lis­ten­ing. I switched to autopi­lot like my body was no longer mine.” This dis­so­ci­a­tion under­scores the film’s cen­tral the­sis: when phys­i­cal escape is impos­si­ble, the mind retreats into unreality.

The pho­tographs, like the film, offer ten­der depic­tions of French Arab sub­jects, and expand upon Bourouissa’s acclaimed Périphérique project, which began in the ear­ly 2000s. Ini­tial­ly cap­tur­ing his friends and acquain­tances in the Paris ban­lieues through the lens of art his­tor­i­cal paint­ing, the project’s 2022 evo­lu­tion sit­u­ates itself in Gen­nevil­liers, where Bourouis­sa now lives. In high­light­ing the every­day lives of Mus­lim fam­i­lies and French Arabs, Bourouissa’s pho­tographs pro­vide a sen­si­tive coun­ter­point to the media’s over­sights, amid a polit­i­cal and social trend of ris­ing Islamophobia.

In his work, Bourouis­sa con­fronts us with the unseen vio­lence embed­ded with­in the con­ven­tions that gov­ern our actions and rep­re­sen­ta­tions. Despite address­ing the seis­mic shifts of soci­etal and polit­i­cal tur­moil, his gaze cap­tures the sub­tle, almost imper­cep­ti­ble cur­rents of aggres­sion that qui­et­ly shape our world. It is not the sub­ject alone that holds sig­nif­i­cance, but the way it is explored and revealed. He invites us to tru­ly witness.

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seum n. French from Ara­bic, anger, frus­tra­tion, bitterness.