This book reveals the work of the artist and activist Yto Barrada. Her artistic practice draws upon the roles of activist, educator, architect, botanist and anthropologist to explore expressions of communality and individual being. The exhibition presented at Mathaf focuses on the threads of regeneration and growth moving between architecture, urban transformation, horticulture, experimental education and home economics. Weaving together these interdisciplinary methods of making and discovery, the exhibition articulates desires for equality, self-expression and exploration.

The artist’s personal and collective experiences of Tangier are expressed through a multitude of mediums to investigate the structures and systems of life in that city. These work in parallel with similar investigations by the artist into systems in the US, to compose a critical and poetic reading of overlooked histories and realities. Barrada’s works in this exhibition offer an open dialogue on the possible restitution of basic democratic ideals such as shelter, sustenance and communality.

Barrada’s work offers a mode of associative thinking and making, emphasising the right to exist, learn and shape the world around us. In the galleries, her works live together, presenting starting points for possible collective narratives, which recirculate within the spaces as a composition and as new stories in themselves.

Text in English and Arabic.