Mohamed Bourouissa
Attracteur étrange
LaM, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France
Curated by Marie-Amélie Senot
LaM is pleased to present Attracteur étrange (Strange Attractor), an exhibition featuring Mohamed Bourouissa's works of photography, drawing, sculpture, video, live performance, and installation.
Through this enigmatic title, which refers to a mathematical formula, Bourouissa strives to model the apparent incoherence of chaos. He calls into question the way marginalized individuals are depicted, and analyzes the mechanisms of authoritarian power and the effects on communities deprived of their rights.
Casting a scathing eye on society and its shortcomings, Bourouissa puts the individual at the center of his concerns. He highlights the ways in which the “system” takes precedence over human beings and denies the multiplicity of identities. Far from being satisfied with simple observation, Bourouissa reveals the means such individuals employ to construct or reconstruct themselves.
Exchange, dialogue, and sharing are also essential focuses in Bourouissa’s work. His immersions in various communities have enabled him to make them the subjects of a number of works: Pôle-Emploi’s premises in Marseille for L'Utopie d'August Sander (August Sander’s Utopia), 10 months in 2013 sharing the daily lives of the Fletcher Street Cowboys at their community stables in Philadelphia for Horse Day, and last but not least (with the help and support of the LaM), developing writing and theater workshops with women prisoners, culminating in a play at the Theatre de Gennevilliers.
The exhibition highlights one of Bourouissa’s lesser-known practices, drawing, and also reveals the genesis of his projects by showing the ways the artist conceives, creates, and stages them. In constant evolution, several installations have been reworked for the exhibition, opening up new avenues for reflection on our contemporary society—a society governed by media images. Like the artist’s creative process, titles evolve, overlap, and merge with each other.
Held in collaboration with the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, which will also be devoting an exhibition to the artist in early 2024, the exhibition at the LaM is set to explore our contemporary society’s relationship with authority, control, imprisonment, and surveillance.