Yto Barrada

MOROCCO/FRANCE, 1971

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Before the Strait of Gilbratar became a symbol of the European Union’s protectionist policy towards North African immigration, once solicited, but no longer desired, it was the natural thoroughfare between Spain and Morocco, Europe and Africa. Once a point of departure for vessels setting sail towards limitless horizons, the Moroccan port city of Tangiers is now more like an immobile ship whose cargo of candidates for immigration is left to wander ashore.

The Strait of Gibraltar, Tangiers and Tangerines permanent or temporary, inhabitants of the century-old city or recently arrived North African neighbours, are depicted by French-Moroccan artist Yto Barrada through photography and video, the former medium often emphasizing the already-stiffened condition of its subjects and the latter hinting at the distant possibility of movement through time and space.

Barrada however, produces more than just a photographic portrait or a moving documentary of a contemporary state of affairs. Instead, through a process of indexation of present phenomena and subtle references to a once more forthcoming past, she investigates the complex nexus of mythical, historical, and geopolitical connections that have created the contemporary now.

With magic, all the craftsmanship lies in controlling what is made visible to the naked eye of the viewer. “The hands of the magician are faster than the eyes of the spectator,” explains Abdelouahid elHamri in Yto Barrada’s The Magician. Filmed in the magician’s courtyard, a makeshift stage framed by shabby black curtains, he performs the simplest of tricks with a gravitas that contrasts almost comically with his unkempt disposition. Barrada’s compulsion to document is a compulsion to represent, bring back into visibility individuals all too often expelled from what is deemed representable.2

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