Hichem Merouche

Art

30 Sept

Written By Power Ekroth

Hichem Merouche in conversation with Michele Masucci, in Botaniska trädgården, Stockholm 2024

Camera and production: Juan-Pedro Fabra Guemberena

Thanks to Iaspis, Konstnärsnämnden, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee for still hosting artists in residencies

Hichem Merouche (b.1991 in Tunis) is an artist based in Algeria and Greece. Merouche’s practice probes colonial ruin, national and religious apparatus and contemporary pan-Arab imaginary. His work integrates film, sound, photography, transformed objects and multilingual publications, in installations that directly connect to his personal life itinerary, spanning identity, faith, poetry and forms of survival within complex structures of authority.

During his residency at IASPIS, Merouche will launch research for a new body of work, editing an extensive archive of messages he captured inside the Jardin d’Essais – the botanical garden of Algiers. These messages, irreversibly engraved by visitors on tree-skins include tributes, love declarations, political messages, and other to-be-deciphered pictograms, that the artist compiled in form of photographs. Parallel to that, he aims to setup his studio to invite Stockholm based migrants to informally converse about aspiration, departure, adulthood, arabness and absence.

ArtHichem Merouche

Power Ekroth

Power Ekroth (SWE/NO) is an independent curator and critic. She is a founding editor of the recurrent publication SITE. She works as an Art Consultant/Curator for KORO, Public Art Norway and for the Stockholm City Council in Sweden. She is the Artistic Director of the MA-program of the Arts and Culture at NOVIA University of Applied Sciences, Jakobstad, Finland.