Lydia Ourahmane Journeys Into a Contested Corner of the Sahara
The Algerian-born artist considers the geopolitical demons and prehistoric paintings of the Tassili n’Ajjer in her first exhibition in the country of her birth
Tassili (2022) is Lydia’s Ourahmane’s mesmerizing high-definition filmic portrait of Tassili n’Ajjer, a landscape of towering sandstone columns and arches wrought by erosion in the southeastern corner of the Algerian Sahara. The UNESCO site, which covers an area roughly the size of Ireland, is home to more than 15,000 prehistoric cave paintings and engravings. Tassili follows these agile silhouettes of human forms as they dart across the rock face in pursuit of large game. So elegant and enigmatic were these paintings that upon ‘discovering’ the site in 1956, French ethnologist Henri Lhote claimed that they were evidence of alien contact.
Ourahmane was born in Saïda, Algeria in 1992 and emigrated to London with her family at the age of 9. After graduating with a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, she moved back to Algeria in 2018, settling in Algiers and establishing herself in its burgeoning art scene. Making connections has been fundamental to Ourahmane’s work for the last five years, particularly those established with the circle around rhizome, the most internationally active contemporary art space in Algiers. The co-founder of rhizome, Khaled Bouzidi, coordinated the 16-person production team that traveled into the Sahara for Tassili. After showing the work at the Sculpture Center in New York in 2022, and in Paris and Toronto, rhizome presented Tassili in Algiers at Les Ateliers Sauvage in March, the first exhibition of Ourahmane’s work in the country of her birth. Tasilli is now on view in Tunis at B7L9 Art Station. Read More..
