MARSEILLE.- The [mac] Museum of Contemporary Art of Marseille presents an exhibition dedicated to the contemporary French artist of Russian and Algerian origin, Louisa Babari. Entitled AFRICA, this immersive project explores the ancient and mythological layers of North Africa through a body of photographic, visual, and sound works, where history, fiction, and memory intersect.
Designed in partnership with the Passages Contemporary Art Center and with the support of the Pierre Barbizet Conservatory, the exhibition is part of the Rencontres d’Arles program the Grand Arles Express. It has also received the Saison Méditerranée label. The exhibition is accompanied by the sound project Public Voices, produced with the support of Rhizome Art Center.
The [mac] invites Louisa Babari to take over the experimental space of the [mac]room.
In 2024, the [mac] Museum of Contemporary Art of Marseille acquired Journal of an Algerian Student in Moscow, a major work by Louisa Babari composed of family archives retracing her father’s journey in the USSR between 1962 and 1972.
Through this intimate micro-history, the artist offers a counterpoint to colonial and postcolonial iconography, sketching an “off-ground” Algeria and opening a critical dialogue with dominant historical narratives. Seeking to deepen this approach, the [mac] entrusted Louisa Babari with the experimental [mac]room space.
The exhibition AFRICA, developed in partnership with the Passages Contemporary Art Center in Troyes, is part of a long-term research process combining image archaeology, Amazigh mythology, and contemporary creation. The exhibition is accompanied by a sound piece specially conceived by the artist, in collaboration with students from the electroacoustic music class of the Pierre Barbizet Conservatory, under the direction of Jean-Luc Gergonne.
AFRICA: Between Amazigh mythology and contemporary creation
The exhibition title refers to the Berber goddess Africa—Ifri or Ifru—a mythological figure associated with fire, war, fertility, and trade. Through this reference, Louisa Babari examines the origins of the name “Africa” and its gradual extension to the entire continent, from ancient North Africa to its contemporary reinterpretations.
The exhibition unfolds through a series of photographic works, collages, photomontages, and sound creations devoted to Berber and Numidian civilizations within the Algerian context. The artist’s research into her surname—derived from the Babari tribe, originating in the Aurès—nourishes an imaginary world populated by warrior figures, riders, Barbary lions, and Barb horses, forming an ancient bestiary reactivated through immersive installations.
By intertwining history, personal intuition, and artistic production, AFRICA offers an aesthetic and subjective reflection on an ancient, precolonial, and mythological Algeria—still largely absent from dominant representations.
Louisa Babari was born in 1969 in Moscow. She grew up between Algiers and Moscow. A graduate of Sciences Po and the INALCO in contemporary studies and cinema, her artistic practice encompasses video works, photographic and sound installations, graphic works, and sculpture.
Her work engages with forms and discourses linked to aesthetic and social transformations in former socialist countries, addressing themes of resistance and struggles for independence.
Since 2015, she has developed a research-based practice focused on transformations in architecture and the history of the built environment in Algeria, as well as in major cities and heritage sites across Africa. She has extended this research to Vietnam, where she documents the transformation of coastal villages.
In 2018, she created Public Voices, a sound installation and pan-African poetry program designed for public space, supporting African literary production.
In 2023, Louisa Babari was awarded the AWARE Prize, Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions.
