An artist that represented France at last year’s prestigious Venice Biennale is the latest to present an exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts.
Zineb Sedira’s show Can’t You See the Sea Changing? follows the success of her video work Dreams Have No Titles, awarded a special mention by the jury for the 2022 Italian arts festival, where she became the first artist of Algerian heritage to represent the country of her birth.
Combining film, photographs and installations created over several years for various projects, Zineb has devised this exhibition in collaboration with the DCA and De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex.
Can’t You See the Sea Changing? explores the Paris-born artist’s long-term fascination with shorelines, especially off the North African country where her parents once emigrated from and have since returned.
Zineb has captured images that include ominous shipwrecks off the coast of Mauritania, abandoned there by western owners near a shore where many Africans attempt dangerous crossings to Spain’s Canary Islands.
These contrast with Algeria’s imposing lighthouses and rocky coast that they warn shipping to avoid. Zineb explains they are connected by her concerns with themes of trade and migration, movement and identity.
“In Algiers, the sea is very present,” she says. “It plays a role in history, politics, with France and colonisation.
“And today it’s important because a lot of people try to cross it to escape to Europe. The sea can be an open space or a place of closure, depending on where you come from.”
Artist avoids presenting migrants ‘for ethical reasons’
While Zineb’s inspirations may be timely, given the rise in numbers attempting to cross the English Channel and the Mediterranean, impacted by conflicts and the effects of the climate crisis, she avoids presenting migrants directly.
That is partly for ethical reasons, she argues, though the artist is also keen to tell more universal stories of travel and connections, mixing the political with the poetical.
“I wouldn’t film or photograph people, even from far away, unless I had their permission and you can understand they wouldn’t want that,” she says.
“My work shows very few people apart from actors or my family, or I do interviews with them.
“What is important to me is whether it’s the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean, the stories of the sea are all the same. They all comprise metaphors for mobility or non-mobility depending on your passport status. Wherever you go, there are some people trying to escape to another place.”
Instead, Can’t You See the Sea Changing? features a film that tells the story of a photographer who for decades catalogued ships leaving and arriving the French port of Marseilles, alongside a representation of part of her Brixton-based studio (she moved to London in 1986) with souvenirs, books and materials collected over the years that reflect her maritime interest.
Ahead of its opening, a free Meet the Artist event takes place at the DCA next Friday, April 28, at 6.30pm with Zineb in conversation with the venue’s director, Beth Bate, its first since 2019. Booking is advisable.
Can’t You See The Sea Changing? will be at the DCA from April 29 to August 6 2023.
Conversation