ESSEN.- In cooperation with Ruhrtriennale, Museum Folkwang is presenting two video installations by the French-Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili (born in Casablanca, 1975). Her works focus on political themes, portraying members of various political minorities and their strategies of resistance. Through her artworks, Bouchra Khalili is constantly rearticulating the connections between subjectivity and collective history, questioning the complex relationships between the individual, their duties as a citizen, and civic belonging, calling into being a (new) collective voice.

In Twenty-Two Hours (2018), a production commissioned by Ruhrtriennale, Bouchra Khalili investigates Jean Genet’s visit to the USA in 1970. Invited by the Black Panther Party, the French author stood in solidarity with this civil rights movement and its leadership, which was at that time arbitrarily detained. During the two months he spent in the US, he toured the country, tirelessly calling for solidarity.

Today, nearly 50 years later, two young African-American women examine Genet’s commitment to the Black Panther Party. As much storytellers as film editors, the two women combine fragments of images, sounds, historical facts, and film footage, to tell the story of Genet’s commitment to the BPP, punctuated by a former member of the Party recounting his personal memories of the events of the time. Twenty-Two Hours is about the power of participation and solidarity. Through the example of Jean Genet, this video work reveals the relevance of public speech both from a historical perspective and in its contemporary context, opening up a space for political action.

Parallel to Twenty-Two Hours, Museum Folkwang is showing the film The Tempest Society (2017), Bouchra Khalili’s contribution to documenta 14. The Tempest Society is neither documentary nor fiction, but a hypothesis. In present-day Athens, three individuals from different backgrounds form a theatre group. Together they examine the current state of Greece, Europe, and the Mediterranean area on a theater stage, which becomes a space of civic engagement. Taking inspiration from Al Assifa (‘The Tempest’), an activist theatre group composed of North-African immigrants and French students – the young Athenians name themselves The Tempest Society. In the 1970s, Al Assifa addressed the daily struggle against inequality and racism in France through the format of the "theatrical newspaper”. 40 years later, Al Assifa’s forgotten legacy is finding a place of reactivation in Greece. The members of The Tempest Society and their guests examine their own perspectives on stage, articulating a collective call for solidarity.