Yto Barrada combines her own works with collection pieces from her birth year, 1971. A dialogue unfolds around memory, time, loss, and forms of artistic resistance.

Material, history and resistance

Yto Barrada (b. 1971 in Paris) combines political analysis with a poetic engagement with form and material. Her practice spans photography, film, textiles and collage. For this exhibition, she brings her own works into dialogue with pieces from 1971. At the centre is her 16mm film A day is not a day (2022), which contrasts capitalist systems of time with natural processes of decay. Her works explore loss, history, and close observation of nature as acts of resistance.

Pedagogy and organic thinking

A recurring theme in Barrada’s practice is learning through doing. In her hometown of Tangier, she founded the Cinémathèque de Tanger and The mothership, a creative campus for natural dyes. Her artistic processes combine research, play and collective knowledge – creating spaces for memory, transformation and utopia. In 2026, she will represent France at the Venice Biennale.

(The exhibition is curated by Laura Vuille and supported by the Leir Foundation)