Seafaring and Disenchanted Matters
Seafaring and Disenchanted Matters
Seafaring and Disenchanted Matters is a five-part series of images taken in Mauritania along the coastline of Nouadhibou. Here, where the desert and the ocean meet, the hulks of rusting ships lie strewn on the shore. This cemetery of abandoned vessels is a departure point for illegal migration to Europe. Nearby this decrepit industrial wasteland lies a natural habitat where migrating birds can be observed as well as ruins of a fort and houses, sign of the crumbling of French colonial power in the 1960s.
In Nouadhibou hope, exile, migration, decline and death co-exist; Zineb Sedira’s ambivalent images show a city in a state of complete stagnation. They reveal the politics of power, the difficult socio-economic and environmental conditions and the frontiers of commerce and international economy, where demand, supply and working conditions are constantly changing outside Africa.
In her work Sedira subtly recounts an oppressive history, but one in which the Atlantic opens up to every possibility.
Zineb Sedira lives in London and works in Algiers, Paris and London. She obtained an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art (London). Her work is regularly presented on the international scene in solo and group exhibitions including the Tate Liverpool (2011), the Musée d’Art Contemporain [mac] (Marseille, 2010), the Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2010), the Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center (2010) and the Bildmuseet (Sweden, 2010). She has also participated to many biennials and triennials such as the Venice Biennale (2001 and 2011), the Folkestone Triennial (2011) and The ICP Triennial of Photography and Video (New York, 2003). In the Fall of 2011, the Galerie Kamel Mennour (Paris) will present the exhibition Beneath the Surface, accompanied by a publication.
DAZIBAO PRIZE
With this book, Dazibao rewards Zineb Sedira, recipient of the Dazibao Prize, conferred during the 2009 edition of the Mois de la Photo à Montréal (guest curator: Gaëlle Morel) and for which the Galerie B-312 presented the exhibition Mother Tongue. The recipient of the Dazibao Prize is given the opportunity to produce a book as part of Dazibao’s series Les portables.
LES PORTABLES
LES PORTABLES collection of Les Éditions Dazibao is dedicated exclusively to the work of one artist. The collection appropriates the form of the book as a space, and a site, for the dissemination of contemporary photographic practice. The books of Les portables are travelling exhibitions with unlimited venues and circulation.
Artist: Zineb Sedira
Edited by France Choinière
Design: Joanne Véronneau
2011
56 pages, color reproductions, hardcover
ISBN 978-2-922135-38-1
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