Amina Zoubir's work focuses on the representation and appropriation of the female body in photographs influenced by colonisation and ethnography in North Africa. The MARKK photo collection contains many of these photographs, which also pose a challenge for the museum. As historical objects and testimonies, the museum conserves and preserves them. However, their origins coincide with a period of scientifically dominant and unbalanced colonial and European power structures, which are directly visible in the photographic representations of people and the images they create. Uncritical reproduction, exhibition and visualisation can still solidify these images today, as well as perpetuating a violent objectification of the people represented.
The strength of Amina Zoubir's work lies precisely in the fact that, through a deliberate deconstruction and fine-tuning of these difficult portraits and the images they convey, the people depicted are placed at the level of subjects, at odds with their original historical context, and thus made visible in a new way. The series of collage-like reproductions highlights the extremely high number of women affected by this colonial appropriation of their bodies.
"Archaeology of the colonized body" was Amina Zoubir's first solo exhibition at the MARKK Museum in Hamburg, Germany. Her collage-artworks were created during her artistic residency "Reversed Exploration" supported by the Kulturforum Süd-Nord. The exhibition was introduced by a discussion with the artist at the Zwischenraum MARKK Museum, addressing the photographic representation of the body during the colonial period in North Africa. Her residency was supported by M.Bassy, the Behörde für Kultur und Medien and the Liebelt Foundation.
Curated by Jana Caroline Reimer, Curator for North Africa, West and Central Asia, and Ancient Egypt, MARKK Museum am Rothenbaum.
Photo: Amina Zoubir, Hammonia Meets Mamounia #1+2, 2021. Collages on canvas, diptych, 50 x 40 cm and 30 × 40 cm. Collection of the MARKK Museum Hamburg Germany.
© Amina Zoubir, ADAGP Paris.
