Dates: 16 November 2024 to 10 March 2025
Space: Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux
The exhibition ‘Oursins de la mémoire’ is the result of the residency of Massinissa Selmani, an artist invited to the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA in 2024 as part of the Pôle innovation & création.
This artist's drawing practice, influenced by photography and photojournalism, questions the mechanisms and rules that govern the construction of narratives, but also, by extension, archives, the capture of events and their dissemination.
Massinissa Selmani develops a project based on amateur photography. His approach is based on personal accounts of exceptional events recounted by people close to him (his father, in particular, who was able to photograph the town of Tizi Ouzou on Algeria's independence day).
At the same time, the artist takes an interest in the weather on the day of these events. This is a way of anchoring the fact/history in something tangible - something that escapes the control of a manufactured form of narrative - when it is collected scientifically. Through the telling of personal stories linked to historical events, set in harmony with the weather on the day in question, the artist creates another form of narrative while taking us on a journey to Algeria during the celebrations.
© Image: Jean-Christophe Garcia
16 January 2025
