Bologna in Lettere 2021
Il Festival online
ARTE-FATTI CONTEMPORANEI
a cura di Maria Korporal
Mohamed Thara
As Long As I Can Hold My Breath
Synopsis :
“As Long As I Can Hold My Breath” is an experimental video that tells the sinking of a migrant boat in the middle of the Mediterranean with an audiovisual recontextualization of archives of the sinking. The video shows swallows leaving Europe in autumn to winter in Africa. It is haunted by the tragedy of Lampedusa on October 3, 2013, off Libya, at the borders of Europe. A horror that turned into a nightmare when the 400 corpses came to the surface. In the introduction of the video there is a twilight poem by Georg Trakl, an Austro-Hungarian poet. He is one of the major representatives of expressionism. Georg Trakl left a work composed of poems whose importance makes him one of the major poets of the twentieth century. In the work of Trakl predominate the atmosphere and colors of autumn, the dark images of evening and night, death and guilt. He defines his poetry as: “the faithful reflection of a cursed century without god”. Among his best-known poems are Verfall, An den Knaben Elis, Helian, Ein Winterabend and Im Winter. A poet of dark lakes, decadence and transgression, Trakl is the most disturbing contemporary poet. His nocturnal ways are strange, and he remains a stranger to all. His poetry is evil, his writing is brilliant and perverse.
The page dedicated to the video:
https://www.mohamed-thara.com/art-work#/video-as-long-as-i-can-hold-my-breath
Here is the history of the exhibitions and festivals of the video:
Patio de Las Artes, San Juan, (Argentina) /
Visualconteiner TV Milan (Italy) /
La Nuit Européenne des Musées, Centre George Pompidou, Paris (France) /
Depart Foundation, Malibu, Los Angeles (USA) /
Kaskada gallery, Szczecin, (Poland) /
Pinacoteca Ruben Berta Museum, Porto Alegre (Brazil) /
EX-NEW Contemporary Art Center, Milan (Italy) /
Festival Ambiance, Cinéma Les Colonnes, Blanquefort (France) /
O Sítio Art and Technology gallery, Florianópolis (Brazil) /
Connect, Vaughn Center at the University of Tampa, FLorida (USA) /
Festival of Intermediate Arts, La Fabbrica Delle Candele, Forli (Italy) /
Lily Agius Gallery, Sliema (Malta) /
New Mills Festival, Art Theater, Derbyshire, (United Kingdom) /
International Experimental Film Festival Albuquerque New Mexico (USA) /
Festival Perform, Domaine de Nodris, Vertheuil (France) /
Szczecin International Film Festival, Szczecin (Poland) /
Firehouse Cultural Center, Ruskin, FLorida (USA) /
CAA College Art Association, Hilton Midtown, New York (USA) /
Terra Incognita #3 Saison Vidéo, Lille (France) /
In Short Film Festival, Lagos (Nigeria) /
Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival, Istanbul (Turkey) /
Biennale Agora Rabat Salé, Rabat (Morocco) /
Toolbox gallery, Berlin (Germany) /
16th Venice Architecture Biennale, (Italy) /
Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles (USA) /
International Video Art Forum, Eastern Province, (Saudi Arabia) /
BIOGRAPHIE
Mohamed Thara est né en 1972 à Fez au Maroc, il vit et travaille entre Bordeaux et Paris. Artiste pluridisciplinaire, il est titulaire d’un diplôme national supérieur d’expression plastique de l’école supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux (DNSEP), il est docteur en esthétique et Théorie de l’art à l’Université de Bordeaux Montaigne. Formé aux techniques photographiques à l’école de l’Institut National de l’Audiovisuel de Paris (Ina sup) et à l’école de cinéma professionnelle Arscipro à Paris. Peintre, photographe, vidéaste et performeur aux talents multiples, il cherche à étendre les limites de la peinture avec une œuvre picturale très personnelle qui interroge l’ambiguïté de la représentation. Ses performances questionnent le « vivre ensemble » et confèrent à l’image la fonction d’analyser le monde dans lequel nous vivons. À travers ses vidéos entre tension et équilibre, il fait naître et mourir, il interroge l’imminence de la mort pour comprendre la fragilité de la vie. Son œuvre photographique contient une promesse d’écriture rituelle, une pensée pertinemment décochée au monde, un projet global et critique de la société par l’image en mouvement qui soulève de nombreuses questions : l’histoire, la mémoire, le mal, l’identité, la douleur, le chaos… Mohamed Thara a participé à de nombreuses expositions à travers le monde aux Etats-Unis, “Soho International Art Contest” New York (1999), à la Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Sharajah, Emarates Arabie Unie (1995), à l’exposition collective “Jeune Peinture” au Grand Palais, Paris (1999), à l’exposition “Mutation” au CAPC, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux (2001), au Musée ZKM à Karlsruhe, Allemagne (2017), au Musée d’Art Moderne de Rio Janeiro, Brésil (2017), à la Biennale de Kochi Musiris à Kerala, Inde (2017), à la Biennale de Venise “Architettura” Italie (2018), aux Rencontres de Bamako, la Biennale Africaine de la Photographie, Mali (2019), à 13e Biennale de La Havane à Cuba (2019), à la 14e Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain à Dakar, Sénégal (2020) et plein d’autres manifestations artistiques. Ses œuvres ont été acquises par plusieurs collectionneurs privés au Maroc, en France et à l’étranger et ses films ont remporté de nombreux prix dans le monde.
BIOGRAPHY
Mohamed Thara was born in 1972 in Fez, Morocco. He lives and works between Bordeaux, and Paris. As a multidisciplinary artist, he holds a National Diploma (DNSEP) in Visual Arts a Master’s degree from the Ecole supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux in France. After having trained in Paris in the different films and photography technics, first, at INA SUP (Audiovisual National Institute) and then at Arscipro (Professional Film School). Mohamed Thara is a Doctor in Aesthetics and Art Theory (Ph.D.) from Bordeaux-Montaigne University in France. Painter, photographer, video artist and multi-talented performer, he tries to extend the boundaries of painting with a very personal pictorial work that questions the ambiguity of the representation. His performances question the sense of “living together” and give his images the capacity to make us analyze the world we live in. Through his videos oscillating between tension and balance, giving birth and generating death, Mohamed questions the imminence of death to let us comprehend about life’s fragility. His photographic work contains a promise of ritual writing, a thought rightly thrown into the world, a global and critical project about society through the moving image that raises many questions: history, memory, evil, identity, pain, chaos… Mohamed Thara has participated in numerous exhibitions around the world: The “Soho International Art Contest” in New York, USA (1999), the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Sharajah, United Emirates Arab (1995), the collective Grand Palais “Jeune Peinture” in Paris, France (1999), the “Mutation” at the Museum -(CAPC)- of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux (2001), France and also at the ZKM, Art and Media Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany (2017), at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio Janeiro, Brazil (2017), at the Kochi Musiris Biennale, in Kerala India (2017), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), at Rencontres de Bamako – African Biennale of Photography, Mali (2019), at the 13th Havana Biennale, Cuba (2019), at the 14th Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar, Senegal (2020) and many other artistic events. Several private collectors from France, Morroco and abroad have acquired his work. His films have won numerous awards around the world.