FOUAD IS NOT A CRIMINAL: CAPTIVE 2024
Project by Ziad Naitaddi
Produced in the framework of the residency Emotional Lands with Philomena.plus Kunst und Architekturplattform (Vienna, Austria) in partnershipwith Le Cube – Independent Art Room (Rabat, Morocco) and Salam MusicFestival (Vienna, Austria)
Curated byElisabeth Piskernik and Achraf Remok
Supported byThe Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sports, The City ofVienna, Basis Kultur Wien
« Ziad Naitaddi encountered people in exile and migrants, whose narratives became the basis for his works,conveying the gradual shift of emotional landscapes. A discourse on identity and home, echoing the the oretical foundations of Homi K. Bhabha. His artistic pursuit revolves around the exploration of emotional “transmutation”, and the concept of belonging. Ziad's chosen method is to extract details from static images, employing a visual surgery that reduces each elementto its microscopic essence. Images are reduced to their pixels, which in turn become the story, used to a political end. He narrates the process of emotional manipulation through his transformation, deliberately eliciting a specifice motional response, simulating the alteration of reality. At the same time, Ziad's videographic imagery – an exploration of movement and weight - delves into the inherent fatigue accompanying physical movement, capturing the idea of migration and displacement, and the layer edimpact of constant relocation and the search for habitat.In Ziad's work, a question arises: if one manages to perceive beyond the surface of images, freeze a moment within moments, what emerges? What defines reality? What meanings and emotions linger in the stillness, in those undiscovered moments while time is suspended? How can we witness the intricate process of movement and the unfolding emotions within it ? All these sensations, the nostalgia of a revolutionary era or memories no longer accessible in motion, reveal experiences surpassing the immediate grasp of mind and heart. In the manipulative world of who moves first, who arrives first, and what remains behind, a migration of emotions takes place. »
Achraf Remok – Curator
