Exhibition view, “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © ADAGP, Paris, 2023 / Abdessamad El Montassir. Photos : Aurélien Mole.
Exhibition view, “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © ADAGP, Paris, 2023 / Abdessamad El Montassir. Photos : Aurélien Mole.
Exhibition view, “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © ADAGP, Paris, 2023 / Abdessamad El Montassir. Photos : Aurélien Mole.
Exhibition view, “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © ADAGP, Paris, 2023 / Abdessamad El Montassir. Photos : Aurélien Mole.
Exhibition view, “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © ADAGP, Paris, 2023 / Abdessamad El Montassir. Photos : Aurélien Mole.
Exhibition view, “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © ADAGP, Paris, 2023 / Abdessamad El Montassir. Photos : Aurélien Mole.
Trab’ssahl
Abdessamad El Montassir
Research and Production Grant ADAGP / Bétonsalon 2022
Trab’ssahl means “The Land of the West” in Hassanya and refers to a large part of Sahrawi territory. It is on this land, in this language, in the largely ignored history of an uninterrupted conflict for nearly 50 years, between sovereignty and autonomy, that Abdessamad El Montassir’s work is anchored. “All that we have experienced, we cannot say. Ask the ruins, ask the desert and its thorny plants. They have seen and experienced everything, they have remained in place. We no longer have the words.” These are the words of Khadija who left her nomadic life for the city in 1975. Powerful though idle, they set out for Abdessamad El Montassir a programme he has been carrying out since 2015: how to show what cannot be seen, how to listen to what cannot be said? What happens to prevented and confiscated memories? What form should oblivion take? In response to the collective amnesia that haunts the Sahara in South Morocco, Abdessamad El Montassir proposes to listen to the silent voices, the resistant poetry, the winds and the sand, the toponymy, to observe resilient plants and to detect everywhere the signs of a traumatic memory. Whether they are human or non-human voices, they become witnesses, even if only partially, to those who are able to listen.
Abdessamad El Montassir
Born in 1989.
Lives and works between Boujdour and Marseille.
Abdessamad El Montassir’s research focuses on a trilogy: the right to forget, fictional and visceral narratives, and anticipatory trauma.
Abdessamad El Montassir is a graduate of the National Institute of Fine Arts in Tetouan, as well as of the master’s degree in Artistic Production and Aesthetic Education at the École Normale Supérieure in Meknes.
From 2017 to 2020, he is an associate researcher at IMéRA – Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of Aix-Marseille.
He has participated in several national and international exhibitions, including “Mémoire des cendres” curated by Paul de Sorbier at La Maison Salvan in Labège, “Ce qui s’oublie et ce qui reste” curated by Meriem Berrada and Isabelle Renard at the Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration in Paris, “Les Sentinelles” curated by Pascale Cassagnau, Camille Leprince and Françoise Cohen at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Tourcoing, “Maa ka Maaya ka ca a yere kono” for the 13th Rencontres de Bamako, “The Promise of Grass” curated by Adwait Singh for the 5th Mardin Biennial, “Quand je n’aurai plus de feuille” curated by Gabrielle Camuset at La Villa du Parc in Annemasse, “Demain c’est seulement dans un jour” curated on line by Taous R. Dahamni for Le Jeu de Paume Lab, “About Now” at the Cécile Fakhoury Gallery in Dakar, “Surgir des cendres” as part of Chroniques – biennale des imaginaires numériques in Aix-Marseille, “Invisible”curated by Alya Sebti for the 13th Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar and the ifa-Galerie in Berlin, “Leave No Stone Unturned” curated by Clelia Coussonnet at the Cube – independent art room in Rabat, “De liens et d’exils” at La Villa Empain – Fondation Boghossian in Brussels, “Saout Africa(s)” in the framework of documenta 14 at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin.
Abdessamad El Montassir has also taken part in several artistic residencies including the Solitude Fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, the Art, Science and Society Programme at IMéRA in Marseille, and more recently, the A.I.R programme at the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton.
Family cyanotype workshop, for children aged 6 and over, as part of the Treize’Estival – the 13th arrondissement’s cultural festival – and the exhibition “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir.
Family terrarium workshop, from 6 years old
Flash visits and free lunch with the Résoquartier solidarity foodtruck
Collective reading session, books in French
Weaving workshop, intergenerational
Family cyanotype workshop, for children aged 6 and over, as part of the Treize’Estival – the 13th arrondissement’s cultural festival – and the exhibition “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir.
Cyanotype family workshops, from 6 years old
By Matthieu Guillin, in collaboration with Abdessamad El Montassir.
Sound creation workshop, pre-teens and teens, as part of the exhibition “Trab’ssahl” by Abdessamad El Montassir.
Sound creation workshop, pre-teens and teens
Video, 11 min
Coproduction : Maison Salvan, Akademie Schloss Solitude and ADAGP
© Photo : DR, Abdessamad El Montassir et Adagp, Paris, 2023.
© Adagp, Paris, 2023
Video, 15 min
Co-production: Maison Salvan, Akademie Schloss Solitude and ADAGP
Photo: © DR, Abdessamad El Montassir and Adagp, Paris, 2023.
Video, 13 min
Coproduction: Maison Salvan, Akademie Schloss Solitude and ADAGP
Photo: © DR, Abdessamad El Montassir and Adagp, Paris, 2023.
