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This romantic title, full of promise, is used to denounce or regret a state of affairs rather than hail it or appreciate it. In using this title, I am making a reference to the Golden Age as discussed by Freud, who writes about taking refuge in the past which is made to seem marvellous in order to escape a bitter present and avoid projection into the future.

 

Algerian society, in a large part, has taken refuge in the past. Unsatisfied with the present, anguished by the future, it refuses to move forwards. This is visible in all domains. In Algerian art, there is a great nostalgia for colonial Orientalism at its worst. Urban frescoes being the most symptomatic illustration of this fact.

 

I always build my interrogations starting by an urban element: how and why did these frescoes impose themselves in the Algerian landscape? What is the genesis of this artistic practice?

 

I recently began a search for these expressions of a backward-looking nostalgia: from examples dotted all over the Casbah of Algiers to reproductions of artworks by Étienne Dinet (1861-1929), to colonial postcards and photographs by the photographer Mohamed Kouaci (1929-1996).

 

In this research project, I  will place those works in a relationship to the practice of contemporary Algerian artists. Through the Algerian case, I intend to enquire into an issue that seems to affect Arab societies who remain attached to a mythical Golden Age, a golden age that is implicated in and immersed within with colonial imagery.

 

This project unfolds in 3 sections: an installation, an exhibition, and a publication.

 

 

Timeline for development of Project: research for this project has begun and will continue through December 2014, with a view to exhibiting it in early 2015

About the artist

Amina Menia was born in 1976 in Algiers, Algeria, where she still lives and works. She studied at Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Algiers and has been exhibiting her work internationally for some years. She has recently attracted support of the Kamel Lazaar Foundation, and she won considerable attention at last year's 1:54 African Art Fair at Somerset House. 

 

Amina Menia creates artworks that combine sculpture and installation, questioning the relation to architectural and historical spaces and challenging conventional notions around the exhibition space. Often in public spaces, her sculptural installations invite interaction from viewers through socio-spatial configurations. Grounded in the post-colonial history of her native Algiers, her work stands as an invitation to re-evaluate our understanding of heritage, and deconstruct conceptions of beauty.  Menia exhibitions include: Museum of Modern Art of Algiers (MAMA), Algeria; Carthage National Museum, Tunisia; and Castile-León Museum of Contemporary Art (MUSAC) in León, Spain. She also recently exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseilles, France, Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin, Ireland, and the Museum of African Design in Johannesburg, South Africa. She participated in the 11th Sharjah Biennial in the United Arab Emirates and will soon take part to the Dakar Biennial 2014.


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