This publication accompanies the exhibition Between Circles and Constellations by artist Bouchra Khalili. Co-produced by MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and Sharjah Art Foundation. Combining commissioned texts, interviews, archival material, alongside installations views, details and research processes of the artist’s work, the book presents an interdisciplinary narrative on how her works invites the public to rethink civic engagement outside the nation-state model. It showcases various works spanning the past decade of Khalili’s career, encompassing film, video installations, photography, and documentary material, and emphasis the role of orality and the ‘unarchived’ in her artistic process in addition to documenting her co-commissioned work The Circle (2023), a video installation exploring the history of the Movement of Arab Workers in France during the 1970s.
It includes contributions from KJ Abudu, Hoor Al Qasimi, Omar Berrada, Övül Ö. Durmusoglu, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Olivia C Harrison, Yousef Rocé Kamisky and Bouchra Khalili. Together, the texts propose their own constellation of analysis on Khalili’s visual and sonic language and her storytelling techniques, which unveil a multilingual chorus of communities coming into being.