What happens when the ways that memories and politically constructed spaces are articulated encounters both the need to know and the right to forget?
With Sur les ruines, les pierres fleurissent (Among the ruins, the stones bloom), Abdessamad El Montassir proposes a plunge into the desert and its silenced stories, which he envisions as an archipelago, replete with both human and non-human presences, buried memories, and disjointed temporalities. It is a living landscape where plants, trees, mountains, the sand, and the wind become active witnesses, capable of conserving and transmitting that which the dominant narrative leaves in the shadows.
Originally from the Sahara in the south of Morocco, Abdessamad El Montassir has developed a practice situated at the intersection of art and research, in which the landscape is never a passive entity, but an active participant in its own right. His projects are rooted in an attention to what escapes language: the experiences of humans who cannot, will not, or are no longer able to bear witness, as well as the more discreet ways that non-human entities express themselves through temporalities that elude us. From this space emerge fragmentary narratives, where transmission is constructed through the afterimage of what once was.
The exhibition Sur les ruines, les pierres fleurissent brings together recent works and new pieces that invite us to pause and pay close attention to what the landscapes can reveal to us. It proposes a new reading of desert territories, not as static spaces, but as an ensemble of dignified entities: animals, plants, humans, and minerals.
Abdessamad El Montassir invites us to engage with these fragmented stories, carried by that which persists despite erasure, reminding us that what has not been said has still always been significant. The exhibition therefore takes shape as an experience of listening and perception, asking us to reconsider the manner in which alternative histories are reinvented and transmitted beyond words.
Text by Gabrielle Camuset
Image: Abdessamad El Montassir. Trab’ssahl. 2023. Trilogy of films in HD, stereo sound. 13 minutes 30 seconds each © Abdessamad El Montassir / ADAGP, Paris
