Meriem Bennani (born 1988) is a Moroccan artist currently based in New York.

Biography

Bennani was born and raised in

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populatio ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

. She earned a BFA from

The Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

in 2012, and an MFA from the

École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs The École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ÉnsAD, also known as Arts Decos', École des Arts Décoratifs) is a public grande école of art and design of PSL Research University. The school is located in the Rue d'Ulm in Paris. Profil ...

in Paris.

Work

Bennani works in video, sculpture, multimedia installation, drawing, and Instagram. She is known for her playful and humorous use of digital technologies such as 3D animation,

projection mapping Projection mapping, similar to video mapping and spatial augmented reality, is a projection technique used to turn objects, often irregularly shaped, into display surfaces for video projection. The objects may be complex industrial landscapes, s ...

, and

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robo ...

. She often publishes her work on social media such a
Instagram
and Snapchat, having over thirty-seven-thousand followers on the latter as of July 2020. Bennani was one of the four artists featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial who formally requested that their work be removed via a collective letter which was also published on Artforum. She was the winner of the 2019 Eye Art & Film Prize In 2020 Bennani collaborated with Orian Barki on a series entitled ''2 Lizards''. The subject of the series is life in New York City during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. The 8 short videos are now in the collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

and the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

Gradual Kingdom

Bennani's exhibition, Gradual Kingdom, which was featured at SIGNAL gallery in 2015, incorporated video, drawing and sculpture. This exhibit addresses the relationship between her hometown, Rabat, Morocco, and global networks of exchange. Bennani incorporates sand into her sculptural installation to highlight the

extraction of sand Sand mining is the extraction of sand, mainly through an open pit (or sand pit) but sometimes mined from beaches and inland dunes or dredged from ocean and river beds. Sand is often used in manufacturing, for example as an abrasive or in concr ...

from her home region to build artificial islands in the Middle East and to replenish eroding luxury beaches.

Siham and Hafida

Bennani's 2017 exhibition ''Siham and Hafida'' was a multi-channel video installation at

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...

in which Benanni explores the generational conflict between two Moroccan ''chikha'' singers, combining the artist's own footage with digital manipulations and animations.

Fly

Bennani's 2016 video installation ''FLY'' at

MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...

featured a layered choreography of projections which evoked the kaleidoscopic eye of the titular animal. An animated fly acts as a diegetic guide through footage shot in Bennani's hometown of Rabat, Morocco. The fly moves us through fragmented scenes of markets, a wedding, and interviews with relatives, stopping occasionally to sing a distorted version of

Rihanna Robyn Rihanna Fenty ( ; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman. Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados, Rihanna auditioned for American record producer Evan Rogers who invited her to th ...

's “Kiss It Better.”

Fardaous Funjab

''Fardaous Funjab'' is an itinerant fake reality TV show centered around a fictitious hijab designer who creates campy and absurdist designs such as a hijab made of a tennis ball basket or a multi-tiered wedding cake. The project explores the cultural significance of the headscarf, selecting events and holidays that pay homage to both Muslim and American cultures as inspiration for her hijab designs.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennani, Meriem Living people 21st-century Moroccan artists 1988 births Cooper Union alumni Moroccan expatriates in the United States People from Rabat Moroccan women artists 21st-century women artists École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs alumni