04.12.2021–20.02.2022
Survial in the afterlife is Lydia Ourahmane’s first solo exhibition of in Germany. This site-specific installation is conceived for Portikus in Frankfurt and de Appel in Amsterdam.
Born in Saïda, Algeria, in 1992, Lydia Ourahmane lives and works between Algiers and Barcelona. She graduated from Goldsmiths in 2014 with The Third Choir, a piece which entailed her being the first artist to export an artwork from Algeria since the country’s independence from French colonial rule in 1962. Since then Lydia Ourahmane continued to test the possibilities for charging and converting the elements of the physical world, be it commodities or personal property, as these move between borders, generations, and dimensions. In the Absence of Our Mothers (2018) for example, is inspired by the story of her grandfather, who had all thirty-six teeth removed to avoid getting enlisted in the military. As part of this work, Lydia Ourahmane had a gold molar implanted in her own mouth, the equivalent value to the sum a human trafficker charges for the crossing from Algieria to Europe. In her recent installation, Barzakh (2021), the artist transported the entire contents of the furnished apartment she rented in Algiers and adapted them into exhibition spaces in Basel and Marseille.
In her work, Lydia Ourahmane addresses the subtle alterations that objects and narratives undergo through migration and adaptation across times, drawing links between the personal, the geopolitical, and the complex legacy of European colonialism. Her works often start from the (hi)stories of other people, often individuals close to her, people who are also connected with her own biography, which has been influenced by the consequences of political and religious and postcolonial impacts.
For the exhibition Survival in the afterlife, Lydia Ourahmane presents archival material–photographs, films, and sound recordings–created by or depicting members of a religious community founded by her family during the Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) and which is still active today. As a religious minority, this community was then and still is subject to constant oppression and faces political restrictions on religious freedom. In collecting, digitizing, and cataloguing this extensive photographic material belonging to her parents and other members of the Christian community, which has, since 1996, been titled House of Hope, the artist is making the sensitive and private material accessible to the public for the first time though the House of Hope Archives (1989–ongoing). The material, depicting gatherings, collective meals, and family life, are witness to a community that has been nurtured by a strong sense in collectiveness amidst political persecutions: “These materials, which have remained within my immediate family, are testament to a spiritual movement that occurred behind closed doors, and for a period of time, in secret, in the basement of our various dwellings, which were then repurposed for a growing community of people. Many of [these people] faced persecution back home and within the larger context of society. This is the reason it became a commune, not by recruiting per se, but rather determined by the urgency of survival, in the context of a civil war.” (Lydia Ourahmane during the production at de Appel in Amsterdam, 2021). Survival in the afterlife is embedded in a sound-piece titled Notice the direction of fires, that was produced by Yawning Portal, consisting of the musicians Jessica Mai Walker and Joe Ware, in collaboration with Lydia Ourahmane. They created a composition that combines synthetic sounds, Foley effects, and spoken word to permeate and envelop the exhibition space. Mattresses on the floor of the exhibition space and the cushions made by friends of the artist (Closures, 2021) offer visitors a place to rest and listen. The title Notice the direction of fires alludes to the attention required to find the way in an unfamiliar landscape, where smoke from a still invisible fire may serve as an indicator of which direction to go in.
The installation Survival in the afterlife is about the creating of space as a possibility to resistance and as a form of hospitality–especially in periods of isolation, both the present one of the current pandemic and those resulting from governmental restrictions on religious freedom: How is it possible to maintain a community when politics seem adamant in working against it? What can be decisive in enabling a place of hospitality when resources are scarce? Through sharing the artists private family archive in public, this memory as a witness of community develops, in the context of the installation, into a communal experience, carried and interconnected by sound and the shared experience of being together.
Curated by Christina Lehnert
The exhibition Survival in the afterlife is produced as part of the Consortium Commissions—A project initiated by Mophradat. Further support is provided by Stiftung Städelschule für junge Künstler, Städelschule Portikus e.V., and French Bento Bar, Frankfurt am Main. Portikus is continuously supported by City of Frankfurt, Department for Culture.
Installation Views: Diana Pfammatter, Ian Waelder
With special thanks to:
Alex Ayed, Sophia Al-Maria, Alessandro Bava, Yuma Burgess, Victor Ruiz Colomer, Jeano Edwards, Claudia Famulok, Arash Fayez, felicita, Robert Fox, Danai Giannoglou, Graham Hamilton, Steph Hartop, Saad Kaabara, Samantha Lasko, Christina Lehnert, Huw Lemmey, Line Lyhne, Deborah Müller, nifnif, Sarah Ourahmane, Gabriel Possamai, Mica Prentovic, Deshaun Price, Yasmil Raymond, Cory Scozzari, Mira Starke, Robin Stretz, Simon Sutcliffe, Monika Szewczyk & de Appel team, Alex Thake, Hie Tee, Youssef, Isabel Valli, Lucie von Eugen, Jessica Mai Walker, and Joe Ware.
