Bouchra Khalili (born 1975 in Casablanca) is a French-Moroccan artist. She graduated in Film & Media Studies at Sorbonne Nouvelle and Visual Arts at the Ecole Nationale dâÂÂArts de Paris-Cergy.
Khalili works across different media including film, video, installation, photography, works on paper, textile, and editorial platforms. Her multidisciplinary practice suggests civic imaginations that can allow us to envision other ways of belonging. Film and video play a central role in her thinking. Known for complex and multilayered narrative constructions, KhaliliâÂÂs filmic works draw on suppressed historical moments of collective emancipation that span diverse histories, geographies, and generations. Neither documentary nor fiction, her deeply researched âÂÂhypothesesâ articulate language, oral transmission, poetic invocations, storytelling, and innovative visual forms. Experimenting with montage, KhaliliâÂÂs editing process is a key tool of her narration techniques. In her films, the non-professional performers are, at the same time, the filmâÂÂs storytellers and âÂÂeditorsâÂÂ. They narrate and act out textual and visual constellations of unarchived stories of collective emancipation that were suppressed by official narratives. Putting together fragments of oral histories with personal testimonies, texts, photographs, and moving images, they dynamically activate the past while revealing its connections to the present. Summoning poetically the ghosts of unachieved promises, KhaliliâÂÂs films invite viewers to become the witnesses of our history and to contemplate our potential collective future.
Accordingly, with precision and subtlety, her projects challenge hegemonic narratives about migration and statelessness, as well as the violence they engender and normalize, while also pressing contemporary art practice forward, both ethically and aesthetically.
In Khalili's video workThe Mapping Journey Project (2008-11), 8 people who have experienced displacement due to economic, political or social reasons recount their journeys around the Mediterranean. The artist said that the work is about the question: "How can we form communities that are free from the restrictive ideas of belonging shaped by the nation-state model?" Frieze named the work No.7 of "The 25 Best Works of the 21st Century"
She is a Professor and Head of Department of Artistic Strategies at die Angewandte University in Vienna, and a founding member of La Cinémathèque de Tanger, an artist-run non-profit organization devoted to promoting and developing film culture in Northern Morocco.
KhaliliâÂÂs work has been subject to many international solo exhibitions, including at Sharjah Art Foundation (2024); EMST, Athens (2024); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2024); Fondation Luma, Arles (2023); MACBA, Barcelona (2015, 2023); FFT Düsseldorf (2022); Bildmuseet, Umea (2021); Oslo Kunstforening and Fotogalleriet, Oslo (2020); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2019); Museum Folkwang, Essen (2018); Jeu de Paume, Paris (2018); Secession, Vienna (2018); MAXXI, Rome (2018); CAAC, Sevilla (2017); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2017); MoMA, New York (2016); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015); PAMM, Miami (2013).
Her work was also included in collective international shows such as the Venice Biennale (2013; 2024); Sharjah Biennial (2011, 2023); Dream City, Tunis (2023); the 2nd Lahore Biennial (2020); the 12th Bamako Biennial (2019); BienalSur, Buenos Aires (2019); Documenta 14, Athens/Kassel (2017); the Milan Triennale (2017); La Triennale, Paris (2012); the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012).
She participated to numerous collective exhibitions in international institutions such as the San Jose Museum of Arts (2024); the 3rd Thailand Biennial (2024); Kunsthaus Graz (2023); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018, 2020, 2023); Kadist, Paris (2023); IVAM, Valencia (2023); Kunsthaus Zurich (2015, 2023); Fondazione Sandretto, Turin (2021); MAXXI, Rome (2021); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2021); CAM, St. Louis (2021); Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2020); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2019); Cardiff National Museum (2018); MCA, Sydney (2016); Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven (2014); New Museum, New York (2014); Carré dâÂÂArt, Nîmes (2013); Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam (2013); Haus Der Welt, Berlin (2010, 2013); Hayward Gallery, London (2012); South London Gallery (2012); Cité Internationale de lâÂÂImmigration, Paris (2012); Beirut Art Center (2011); Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2011); Museo Reina SofÃÂa, Madrid (2008).
In 2023, she received the Sharjah Biennial Prize. She was also the recipient of the inaugural Terry Riley Humanitarian Award (2021); the HarvardâÂÂs Radcliffe Institute Fellowship (2017-2018), the Ibsen Award (2017), the Abraaj Art Prize (2014), daad Artists-in-Berlin (2012), and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics Fellowship, New York (2011-2013).