Wiame Haddad

The project consists of a triptych of photographic panels and a 16mm film, both based on archival images of the Sabra and Shatila massacres and displayed in an especially designed setting, seemingly from West Beirut. The purpose is to probe the subjective power of the image and question its ability to convey reality objectively. In blending fiction with documentary, the project attempts to reassess the credibility of representations and the value we attach to them as historical evidence.

In Absentia is a project initiated by the Tunisian/French artist Wiame Haddad in 2017 consisting of a series of photos and conducted in two stages: the artist begins by creating sculptures portraying body fragments of former Moroccan and Tunisian activists and prisoners, using plaster and resin mouldings. In a second phase, she photographs these pieces that she displays in a pure and direct spatial setting. By displacing or isolating those body fragments, the images tend to reconstruct the bodies, in an attempt to make these invisible lives visible, and to seek through movement a way to escape from immobility.

The project is to trace the allegedly absent visual archive of the period of political struggle and state repression in the post-independence era in Morocco in order to create an “iconology” for that period. Bringing together artists, researchers, former and current political activists and opposition members, it will attempt to find a realm of convergence between historical research, personal narratives and artistic research focused on the years of left wing radicalism, underground activity, prison and exile for Marxist-Leninist oriented political activists in the 1970s. The “visual archeology” will consist of paintings/collages incorporating different types of documents, family and personal archives, and installations and photography by Wiame Haddad. Questionnaires, historical texts, literary excerpts, types of documentation or merely an explanatory label will accompany each composition. “In Absentia” proposes a modern and regenerative approach to the history of political commitment (especially among Marxist-Leninist movements) and state repression in the 1970s in Morocco through the ostensibly missing images and visual archives from that era.