Nabila Halim is a mixed media artist, born in 1989 in Morocco. At present, she lives and works in Marseille, France. Nabila moved to France for her studies and graduated from the National Superior Art and Design School in Marseille in 2018.
Her work is largely autobiographical. Having been diagnosed with cancer, she explores this facet of her life through various themes centered around the body, its mechanics, its alteration, its place within the physical and mental spaces.
As a mixed media artist, Nabila works in video, photography and installation to question the place of her body- a woman’s body, inhabited by illness within the private and public sphere. Oscillating between frontal intimacy and distant metaphors, her works are intrinsically linked to a research on introspection.
After six years of work centered around this disease, she has shifted focus towards the notions of migration, movements and legacies.
Nabila Halim’s productions aim at cultivating personal memories through their materialization, through transmission, by moving in between cultural and territorial spaces. She examines this narrative by looking at her personal experience with migration and her experience as a “stranger”. In doing so, she often reimagines the experience in a sort of fantasised reality. This gives her work a collective and universal form, making it easier for persons to relate.
Nabila was an Artist at Risk (AR)-Resident at AR-Marseille, hosted by Fræme from September to December 2021. Her residency was co-funded and co-organised by Perpetuum Mobile (PM) as part of the AR-Network. She was selected as an AR-resident in the framework of the “Résidence Méditerrannée » program initiated by la Friche la Belle de Mai, in Marseille.
During her residency, she started a project titled How deep is your love, which included three installations. The first of which included a series of plaster sculptures made from the objects contained in a package she received from her parents in Morocco. The second installation was created from letters attached to packages sent to her by her father and plays with the notions of decomposition and reconstruction as she deconstructed the words, isolating each letter and then used them to create a new narrative. The third piece was a video shot in Morocco by Nabila which showcased a venue that she particularly likes in Morocco.
During her time at Fræme, Nabila came into contact with many persons in the world of art such as the director of the MUCEM (Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations), Jean-François Chougnet as well as the team from the La Compagnie art center. Her time as an AR-Resident also helped her integrate in the art community in Marseille, meeting artists such as Badr El Hammami with whom she shared her studio as well as Imane Fakhir.
At the end of her residency, Nabila was selected to showcase her work at the Marseille based Parallèle festival. Her installation will be on display at the Centre Photographique Marseille from January 20 to March 26.
Internal links:
- AR-Marseille at La Friche la Belle de Mai
- Immigré Artists (IA) and Artists at Risk (AR) Nordic Network
External links:
