For this project, Ourahmane moved the entire contents of her flat in Algiers to Europe during the 2020 lockdown. As she could not return to Algeria due to an ongoing artist residency, she brought her 'home' to her in the form of an installation that was given exactly the same surface area and layout as her original living space.
In the exhibition, the artist's interventions and the special circumstances ensure that the contents are transformed into an extremely complex, fragile environment, which slowly or unexpectedly releases meanings.
Barzakh means, 'the uncertain' in Arabic, the 'in-between' state between life and death, the place where the spirits hide but also a physical place that offers protection.
Barzakh was commissioned by Kunsthalle Basel and is a co-production of Kunsthalle Basel and @Triangle-Astérides, Centre d'art contemporain, Marseille. S.M.A.K. is the third stage in a journey that took Barzakh from Basel to Marseille and then Ghent.
