International Visitors Programme
Sofiane Si Merabet and Nouha Ben Yebdri visited the Netherlands from 31 January to 10 February 2020, through the Open Call of the International Visitor Programme, as part of the curatorial team of the media and digital art festival New Radicalism.
New Radicalism was a four-day festival around radical new talent in digital art and culture from the Middle East, North Africa and its diasporas. It consisted of an exhibition, panels, talks, workshops, lectures, a reading room hosted by Athenaeum Amsterdam and an extensive (electronic) music program in the evening.
French/Algerian cultural entrepreneur and visual artist Sofiane Si Merabet holds a bachelor's degree in politics studies from Science-Po Lyon and a master's degree in science in management from EDHEC Business School. Aside from his marketing career for L'Oreal and LVMH in Paris and Dubai, he is the founder of Karta, a cultural marketing agency and of The Confused Arab. This online community-based collaborative platform supports authentic exchange between those in the Arab diaspora and those in the Arab world and explores the many definitions of an Arab identity and the 'future of nostalgia' through art and design. Sofiane Si Merabet aims to represent the richness and diversity of Arab culture by collaborating with talents across the MENA region. Following his Hammam tomorrow art installation on SIKKA Art Fair 2017, a cultural initiative by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, The Confused Arab continues the conversation on the diversity of Arab identities. While the plan initially was to feature cities in the MENA region focusing specifically on traditions, history and music, he has since decided to further expand his reach, with the goal being to collaborate with members of the Arab diaspora from different backgrounds.
Nouha Ben Yebdri is an independent curator based in Tangier. After her studies in Madrid, she wrote for notodo.com, La Fábrica's online magazine, and worked as an editor in Edelvives editorial house. In 2015, she returned to Morocco and became project manager at Trankat Art Residency in Tetouan. Since 2016, she has been the founder and artistic director of Mahal, an interdisciplinary art space dedicated to contemporary art practices and researches in Tangier. Nouha Ben Yebdri is also a member of Madrassa, a curatorial collective which considers exhibition-making as a critical endeavour, by experimenting and investigating collective practices and cross-border collaborations. Her research is based on the different learning processes related to artistic practices. It conceives art spaces as places for non-institutionalised capacity development, opening them up to creativity, encounter and experimentation, as opposed to the pedagogical system of the different official entities that historically monopolise this function, and which still reproduce the curricula established during colonial times. She focuses on contemporary art studies that weave artistic practices in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, through the lens of postcolonialism, identity, and gender studies, and how new media shapes these notions in the contemporary lifestyle.