Lydia Ourahmane
Saïda, DZ, 1992 Works and lives in London
Lydia Ourahmane studied at the Camberwell College of Arts and Goldsmiths University in London. Her work is exhibited internationally. The polaroids in this exhibition were recently acquired by the British Museum.
Lydia Ourahmane creates installations, photographs, audio works and performances. In her work, she often refers to political situations in which the personal and the collective merge. The works in the exhibition stem from the same location. The polaroid images display caves which are situated on the coast at the foot of the water in a bay called Corales near Oran, Algeria. Ourahmane was led to this place by word of mouth. Hidden out of sight from coastguards, this bay serves as point of departure for immigrant boats. Someone has written on one of the rock walls, in Arabic graffiti: "fleeing will save us". Ourahmane does not focus on the action, but pure and simply on this spot where land meets water, the last piece of land people touch prior to their departure. In the large work 'Cap Blanche', the caves are represented by heat detections, photographed with a thermographic camera.