Yto Barrada, A day is a day, 2020. Courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery.
This autumn, the SLG presents Thrill, Fill, Spill, a major solo exhibition by artist Yto Barrada.
Barrada’s multidisciplinary practice has long addressed micro-histories, borderlands, cultural phenomena, and strategies of resistance. This exhibition will span textile, film, sculpture, and painting, and feature new and previous works. It will feature a number of new textile pieces which were dyed at The Mothership in Tangier, Morrocco. The Mothership is Barrada’s artist-led natural dyes centre, a residency space and eco-campus where artists, gardeners and creatives come to work and study. Barrada is renowned for her commitment to building communities and fostering cultural exchange, as exemplified by having founded The Mothership and, in 2007, the Tangier Cinémathèque, North Africa’s first art house cinema and cultural centre.
The exhibition will embrace cultural exchange through an artist residency at The Mothership conducted by Emma Ogawa Todd. Following her residency Ogawa Todd will return to deliver workshops for young people as part of the SLG’s Communities and Learning Programme.
Engaging with the performativity of archival practices and public interventions, Barrada’s installations reinterpret social relationships, uncover subaltern histories, and reveal the prevalence of fiction in institutionalized narratives.
Informed by postcolonial thought and socio-political concerns, Barrada’s interests range from the tensions around borders, immigration, and tourism to the urban landscape, and from children’s toys to botany and paleontology. Her practice encompasses photography, film, sculpture, painting, printmaking, and publishing, while her installations often comprise both original work and found objects.
Barrada’s work has been exhibited at the Renaissance Society, University of Chicago (2011); Tate Modern, London (2011); Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2013); The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams (2021); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2021); and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2022). In 2007, Barrada was selected to participate in the Venice Biennale. The artist has received multiple awards, including the Deutsche Guggenheim Artist of the Year (2011); the Abraaj Group Art Prize, UAE (2015); the Roy R. Neuberger Prize (2019); Mario Merz Prize (2022); Queen Sonja Print Award (2022), and Soros Arts Fellowship (2023). Works by Barrada are held in public collections worldwide, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; International Center of Photography, New York; Kunsthalle Basel; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, among others.
Generously supported by: Pace Gallery and Cockayne Grants for the Arts
With additional support from: Fluxus Art Projects, Lubaina Himid, Nicole Saikalis Bay, Maria Sukkar and Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation
