Contoured and with visible texture, the image of a largemountain peak that takes centrestage among Zineb Sedira’s photographs looks exactly like a sand dune – except that it is a heap of cane sugar sitting in a storage silo in Marseille-Fos Port.
Recently taken on by The Third Line gallery in Dubai, Sedira is an internationally acclaimed artist whose first solo show in the region shows a preoccupation with how geography plays into identity, as well as culture shifts as a result of migration.
“What really struck me when I saw it was that it looked like a mountain of sand. And because a lot of my work is based on territories and movement, land and borders, I got interested in the idea of taking photographs of the sugar and offering an analogy to mountains,” she says.
Sedira, who wanted to work outside of the obvious connection with Algeria, produced Sands of Time, a series of photographs depicting sugar in storage from various parts of the world before being cleaned and shipped off for consumption.
“[This series] opens up the topic of mobility and immigration and it also brings in dialogue around post-colonialism and globalisation,” she says. “The visual language I use has an aesthetic that is perhaps more traditional or classical than other artists but the form is as important as the content – I want everyone to be able to easily approach the work.”
Alongside the images, cane-sugar sculptures of a propeller and an anchor are displayed in Perspex cases, referencing arrival and departure. Some of the sugar has been bottled in 15 small vials, giving the show a gritty physicality. Upstairs in the gallery's Project Space, a three-channel video titled Transmettre en abyme is showing. The piece works around the premise of the poetic device known in French as mise en abyme, or the mirror effect. In the video, Sedira and her crew are filmed documenting the work of Hélène Detaille, a woman who is herself documenting the work of Marcel Baudelaire, a compulsive photographer who spent 50 years (1935-1985) taking photos of ships that arrived and departed from Marseille. As well as adding to Sedira's relationship with the sea, the video serves as a nod to the very act of preserving historical narratives, something to which Sedira continually returns.
Much of Sedira’s work is inspired by her experiences as an Algerian born in France who immigrated to Britain.
“My parents travelled by boat from Algeria to France in the early 1960s and I took a boat from France to London in 1986, so the boat is a strong signifier and metaphor in my work,” says the artist, who was commissioned to create the piece – currently on show in Dubai at Third Line Gallery – to mark Marseille’s position as European Capital of Culture in 2013.
Sedira, who says she is often called a feminist artist and, frustratingly, is sometimes defined by her nationality, religion or ethnicity, is hoping her work will connect with people on a universal level.
“A lot of my work is autobiographical. At the beginning it was more about me as a person but now I am concentrating on other things. The work is more open, so it speaks universally.”
• Sands of Time by Zineb Sedira runs until May 31 at The Third Line Gallery. Visit www.thethirdline.com
aseaman@thenational.ae
