HUMLEBÆK.- From 25 June, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art presents the Moroccan-French artist Bouchra Khalili (b. 1975). The exhibition consists of two large multimedia installations created 15 years apart – The Mapping Journey Project (2008–2011) and The Circle Project (2023). Both works contain personal stories and threads that are either hidden or forgotten beneath the prevailing narratives of migration around the Mediterranean.


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Bouchra Khalili’s installation The Mapping Journey Project played a prominent role in the main exhibition Foreigners Everywhere at the 2024 Venice Biennale. Across eight large screens the piece presents an alternative mapping of the migration that takes place around the Mediterranean. The work is a new acquisition for the Louisiana’s collection, and this is the first time it is shown in Denmark.


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The Circle Project evokes the largely forgotten history of how immigrant workers in 1970s France used theatre and performance as a tool in their struggle for better rights and increased social, political and cultural visibility.

The main theme of the exhibition is people’s pursuit of freedom and better living conditions, connected to the migratory movements in the Mediterranean region over the past fifty years. Khalili’s wide-ranging practice across film and other media is characterised by her close collaborations with stateless people and a desire to construct collective storytelling and new, poetic notions of community.

In The Mapping Journey Project, eight people narrate their journeys, which are forced by political and economic circumstances. The journeys span from Northern Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, across the Mediterranean, and over European borders. As each person recounts their difficult and often years-long journey, they trace their route on a map with a marker.

The Circle Project is based on the artist’s many years of research into the organisation Mouvement des travailleurs arabes, MTA (the Movement of Arab Workers) which existed in France in 1973–1978. The organisation fought for the rights of migrants, including through the work of two theatre groups called Al Assifa and Al Halaka. Using artistic expression as a creative “weapon” in their public performances, the theatre groups shone a light on issues such as work permits, racism, and poor housing. Their most notable performance took place in 1974, when, under the pseudonym Djellali Kamal, an anonymous member of the Al Assifa theatre group ran as a candidate for the immigrant workers (who had no right to vote) in the French presidential elections.

“I’m very interested in the stories that aren’t in the “archives”. This might seem paradoxical, as I’m often described as an artist who works with archives, but in reality I do the opposite: I rather work on the basis of what is missing from the archives.” ---Bouchra Khalili in Louisiana Magasin

In the dialogue between the two large installations, each consisting of several parts, Khalili suggests that our common future can be found in the past, as nomadic movements are a historical constant and people have always strived for individual and collective freedom. She describes her works as “hypotheses”. Could we imagine a better shared world?

Curator: Tine Colstrup



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