02 May 2016

Younes Baba Ali at Moussem Nomadic Arts Center, Brussels

Younes Baba-Ali divides his time between Brussels and Casablanca. In his multidisciplinary work, the young artist poses hard-hitting questions about identity, diversity, migration, and integration. Baba-Ali is presenting two new projects at this year's festival. On the Galerie Ravenstein façade he has installed a sculpture of satellite dishes – so banal and yet so typical within the street scenery of Brussels. They are here but are searching for something else, far away. They seem undecided, moving incessantly as in a mechanical ballet. In an empty shop a bit further along, Baba-Ali brings to life a series of works in which he observes the daily lives of illegal street vendors in southern Europe. The street vendors embody a reality of survival, a troublesome black market, but also a fragile beauty. As sculptures of flesh and blood, they penetrate our urban environment. Vu' cumprà? Do you want to buy? Younes Baba-Ali stimulates an open dialogue.