Everything hinges on experimentation, with projects receiving continuous and worthwhile updates. Nothing is definitive, everything is subject to change, especially in peripheral realities and communities.
These are the subjects of COMMUNAUTÉS Projets 2005-2025, Mohamed Bourouissa’s solo exhibition at the Fondazione Mast, in Bologna, where the Franco-Algerian artist’s works are on display. The exhibition includes the series Péripherique, Horse Day, Shoplifters and the previously unseen Hands.
Bouroissa’s 20-year research project, with no end in sight, interconnects photography, music, drawing, sculpture, video and installations to shine a spotlight on peripheral communities. The exhibition also explores the transformations of photography in today’s world, during a period of profound change, where the relationship between individuals and society is becoming increasingly complex within a fragile social context. Bourouissa also investigates themes such as the city, migration, labour and how they are represented, focusing on the hybridization and stratification of language. The exhibition design also aims to convey this complexity. In fact, as curator Francesco Zanot says, “Photography comes down from the walls, occupies the exhibition space and, in a sense, “surrounds” the observer”.
As Mohamed Bourouissa explains, Hands “is inspired by a quote by Antonin Artaud: ‘La grille est un moment terrible pour la sensibilité, la matière’ (‘The grid is a terrible moment for sensitivity, for matter’). It is a just started project, which I am currently exploring and for which I do not yet have a precise development plan”. The images are fragments from earlier series, reconfigured to create new meanings. They are reprinted on plexiglass and mounted against a metal grid (symbol of coercion): the hands and gestures evoke a sense of unease.
In his best-known series, Péripherique, he gives visibility to the protagonists of the 2005 riots in the French banlieues. The reference to works of art that occupy a prominent role in the collective imagination is evident here, given that Bourouissa studied art history. “References include works such as La Liberté guidant le peuple by Eugène Delacroix, as well as images by August Sander and Jeff Wall”, the author explains. At the heart of the project was a reflection on the use of images in the mass media, their creation and construction, and their instrumentalisation. This explains the decision to use mise en scène with friends and actors to create images that, while depicting real-life events, were a kind of tableau vivant.
In Shoplifters Bourouissa reproduced a series of photographs he saw at the entrance of a Brooklyn supermarket in 2014. Taken by the store manager as an accusation, they show the faces of people caught shoplifting. The artist reversed the situation, turning it into a denunciation of society’s consumerist poverty.
Another interesting series is Horse Day which deals with social stables in a Philadelphia suburb, founded by members of the local African-American community. It deconstructs cowboy imagery, long excluded from American equestrian culture due to biases perpetuated by Hollywood cinema and the myth of the Wild West. A genuine “tournament” was organised here, in which the creation of the harnesses played a significant role. It was almost like a reimagining of the elaborate medieval tournaments, but with harnesses made from old CDs and gaudy ribbons. Bourouissa also made a film documenting the entire event. Bourouissa’s interest in blending different disciplines and media is evident throughout this series, that combines photography, video and drawings. Photographic sculptures created by printing images of the stables and their people onto car body parts, blending the practice of dressing-up horses with customizing cars and pick-up trucks, are positioned throughout the space, focusing on the pivotal role of the technical-industrial framework in contemporary society.
The works by Mohamed Bourouissa have been presented in numerous solo exhibitions, from the Barnes Foundation di Philadelphia to the Centre Pompidou di Paris and the Stedelijk Museum di Amsterdam (2016) as well as at many Biennials and Triennials, including those in Venice, Liverpool, Sidney and Algeris.
The exhibition is accompanied by free events, guided tours and educational activities for children and young people.
Paola Sammartano
Mohamed Bourouissa : COMMUNAUTÉS Projets 2005 – 2025
From May 23 to September 28, 2025
Fondazione MAST
Via Speranza, 42
40133 Bologna
Italy
https://www.mast.org
