Yto Barrada

The jury chose Barrada "for her multidisciplinary practice that unites various artistic and social communities in search of a new utopia. An iconoclastic researcher, a borderless and holistic artist, Yto Barrada reinvents 'social sculpture' through the lens of alternative pedagogies and transforms the canons of modernism into a plural garden. From Paris to Tangier, and through New York, she traces a unique cartography that gathers new voices—unseen, fragile, historical, or forgotten—to share their narratives. These are just some of the reasons that led the jury to invite Yto Barrada to unfold her worlds within the space of the French Pavilion and share them with the audiences of the Venice Biennale."

“[Barrada’s] poetic and incisive vision challenges everything we too often take for granted in terms of geography, artistic canons and historical perspectives,” adds Ben Salah. “She is an inexhaustible source of microhistories, which she approaches with disarming precision.”