surgir des cendres

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Abdessamad El Montassir is a bearer of stories and his backdrop is the Sahara: he tells the desert, unfettered, with the freedom of hypothesis. His work is a research, an investigation into something that escapes us. She gives forms to silences and a texture to mutism.

Because El Montassir is a historian without archives, an argonaut of the great outdoors and a  track hound of the territories. His work resembles an anthology of poems, is like a scientific novel and exists as a song of transmission. At the same time, he highlights the capacity of plants and non-human elements to act on the world, even transforming or influencing it.

The exhibition “Surgir des cendres” (“Rising from the Ashes”) brings together two of his recent projects, Al Amakine and Achayef, which, faced with the immateriality of history, become guardians of the stories that belong to the people and create a narrative that conventional history has not been able to tell.

Excerpt of « De l’enfant de sable, au créateur à l’ombre des arbres d’épines : Abdessamad El Montassir, vers une esthétique du silence » by Taous R. Dahmani

Artistic direction: Mathieu Vabre

Al Amakine et Achayef have been realized in coproduction by the artist, Le Cube – independent art room, Carte Blanche par Al Safar, the French Institut in Morocco, the IMéRA with the support of Labex RFIEA+, Moussem Nomadic Art Center, Pro Helvetia Cairo, The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the gmem-CNCM-Marseille and the CHRONIQUES platform, supported by the South Region, the City of Marseille and the French Institute in Paris, coordinated by SECONDE NATURE and ZINC.

Executive producer: Le Cube – independent art room.
Sound creation in collaboration with Matthieu Guillin, composer.
Implementation: Société Lumière and Atelier Deuxième Oeil.