Katia Kameli -Yesterday is returning and I can hear it

Exhibition from January 19th to April 16th, 2023.
An exhi­bi­tion at Bétonsalon –Center for Art and Research and ICI - Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris

Katia Kameli, Image still from the Algerian Novel - Chapter I, 2016 © Adagp, Paris, 2023 / Katia Kameli

Curated by: Émilie Renard for Bétonsalon and Bérénice Saliou for ICI.

Since the begin­ning of the 2000s, artist, director, pro­ducer and teacher Katia Kameli has been devel­oping a dense and mul­ti­faceted body of work. Grounded in two cul­tures - French and Algerian - she ques­tions the blind spots of his­tory, taking up the role of an inter­me­diary between dif­ferent ter­ri­to­ries. Following the paths she her­self has chosen, she makes con­nec­tions between dis­tant facts, repairs broken rela­tion­ships and ensures the voices of those who have been ignored are heard. In so doing, she writes a counter-nar­ra­tive in which her dif­ferent sub­jects of research mingle and com­bine to weave together a mul­ti­tude of per­spec­tives. Kameli’s art lies at the cross­roads of poetry, visual studies and arti­sanal tech­niques. It is the fruit of a con­struc­tion of rela­tion­ships, rela­tions that are built out of affinity, prox­imity and friend­ship. Her first solo show in these two Parisian cul­tural insti­tu­tions brings together an ensemble that includes existing works and her new pro­duc­tion.

The exhi­bi­tion at ICI puts her cre­ations of the last 20 years under the spot­light. It show­cases a con­sis­tent approach in which nar­ra­tives cir­cu­late and are trans­formed, trans­posed and super­posed across dif­ferent places and times. In the exhi­bi­tion, Kameli takes on the role of a trans­lator: her photos, videos, draw­ings and instal­la­tions bring into play a formal and con­cep­tual lan­guage that comes together in an in-between space sit­u­ated between dif­ferent lan­guages, sounds, aes­thetics and cul­tures. Le Cantique des oiseaux [The Canticle of the Birds], a pro­ject co-pro­duced by La Criée, Centre for con­tem­po­rary art in Rennes includes a video she filmed in the Goutte d’Or neigh­bour­hood of Paris in part­ner­ship with the Conservatoire du 18e – Gustave Charpentier. Stream of Stories, a work that addresses the theme of meta­mor­phosis in Kalîla wa Dimna, the fables that inspired Jean de La Fontaine, is enhanced by a tufted tapestry designed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with tex­tile artist Manon Daviet.

The exhi­bi­tion at Bétonsalon is organ­ised around the Roman algérien; it pre­sents the three videos that com­prise the latter (shot between 2016 and 2019) and reveals Kameli’s research for a fourth chapter that takes as its starting point La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua [The Nubah of the Women of Mount Chenoua], a film directed by the Algerian film­maker and nov­elist Assia Djebar in 1977. By basing itself on the first Algerian film directed by a woman (copies of which still cir­cu­late today), Kameli seems to be con­tin­uing the work of Djebar, who looked back at the sto­ries of women in the resis­tance during the war for inde­pen­dence in the town and moun­tains of Cherchell. By col­lecting accounts from women of dif­ferent gen­er­a­tions, she com­poses a poly­phonic, living nar­ra­tive in which per­sonal and col­lec­tive sto­ries are made audible amidst the com­plex­i­ties of a colo­nial past.

The title of the exhi­bi­tion, “Yes­terday is returning and I can hear it“, comes from Women of Algiers in Their Apartments, a 1980 novel by Assia Djebar.

View from the exhibition "Yesterday is returning and I can hear it" by Katia Kameli, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023. Elements of scenography for chapter 4 of the "Algerian Novel", prints of photograms from Assia Djebar’s film "La nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua" (1977) and photographs of the shooting by Julien Graux, books and documents by and about Assia Djebar © Adagp, Paris, 2023 / Katia Kameli. Photo : Marc Domage

Katia Kameli, "Trou de mémoire", 2018. Photographic installation, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © Adagp, Paris, 2023 / Katia Kameli. Photo : Marc Domage

Katia Kameli, "The Algerian Novel, chapters 1, 2, 3", 2016, 2017 et 2019, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © Adagp, Paris, 2023 / Katia Kameli. Photo : Marc Domage

View from the exhibition "Yesterday is returning and I can hear it" by Katia Kameli, Bétonsalon – centre d’art et de recherche, Paris, 2023 © Adagp, Paris, 2023 / Katia Kameli. Photo : Marc Domage