Bouchra Khalili
Astérismes (Fig. 2) : The Circle and The Public Storyteller
Astérismes (Fig. 1 à 3)
octoberoct 2 – 26
© Bouchra Khalili ©
© Bouchra Khalili ©
Thursday october 2
11h - 19h
Friday october 3
11h - 19h
Saturday october 4
11h - 19h
Thursday october 9
11h - 19h
Friday october 10
11h - 19h
Saturday october 11
11h - 19h
Sunday october 12
11h - 19h
Thursday october 16
11h - 19h
Friday october 17
11h - 19h
Saturday october 18
11h - 19h
Sunday october 19
11h - 19h
Tuesday october 21
11h - 19h
Wednesday october 22
11h - 19h
Thursday october 23
11h - 19h
Friday october 24
11h - 19h
Saturday october 25
11h - 19h
Sunday october 26
11h - 19h
Artist Bouchra Khalili. Commissariat Clément Dirié.
The Festival d'Automne à Paris is the managing director of the exhibitions, in co-production with T2G Théâtre de Gennevilliers, Centre Dramatique National. Festival d'Automne à Paris, the
T2G Théâtre de Gennevilliers, Centre Dramatique National and L'Odéon Théâtre de l'Europe present these exhibitions in co-realisation.
Bouchra Khalili is the visual arts guest at the 2025 edition of the Festival d'Automne. Born in 1975 in Casablanca, she lives in Vienna, Austria and works in an itinerant manner. For more than twenty years, she has been producing rigorously conceived works that function as visual and discursive hypotheses, and which take into account the contemporary issues of art and the world. Her work seeks to overturn geographies, narratives and official histories in order to restore depth and precision to reality and its protagonists. Bringing together recent works and new productions, her project entitled Astérismes (Fig. 1 à 3) takes to three theatre stages its exploration of the links between the representation of long-lost stories, performance art and moving images.
Asterism: from the Greek "astêr" (star), meaning constellation. Fig. : abbreviation of figure. 1, 2, 3: sequence of numbers extending beyond the binary.
With her multi-venue and multidisciplinary project Astérismes (Fig. 1 à 3), Bouchra Khalili unveils a constellation of narratives articulating past and present in order to project common futures. The project is the product of long-term research on the Mouvement des Travailleurs Arabes, which was active in the 1970s, in addition to its theatre groups Al Assifa and Al Halaka (meaning "Storm" and "Circle", respectively). This research also looks into ancestral forms of transmission of collective speech in Morocco, via storytellers and public writers. Together, they were the inspiration behind the MTA's theatre-based strategies. The works presented in each of the three venues respond to and complement each other. They bring to the stage different representations of memory, transmission and myth, collective action and public space, as well as the figures of the artist and the performer.
On the Berthier stage of the Odéon Théâtre de l'Europe, The Circle Project (2023) and The Public Storyteller (2024) continue this research into the theatre practices of the MTA. Shot in Marseille, The Circle centers upon Mia and Luca, two French youths from a North African immigrant background, in an attempt to find the all-too rare traces of Djellali Kamal, a member of Al Assifa and an anonymous MTA candidate in the 1974 French presidential election. The Public Storyteller reactivates, in Morocco, Djellali Kamal’s epic story through the voice of a public storyteller, revealing the poetic and spectral dimension of this forgotten candidate.
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