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SARA OUHADDOU - POLARIS

SARA OUHADDOU – POLARIS

15 rue des Arquebusiers, 75003 Paris
13 February - 27 March 2021
https://www.galeriepolaris.fr/

This exhibition is the result of a project developed for and at the Musée d’Histoire de Marseille, during Manifesta 13 (September-November 2020) .
On shelves similar to those of museum storage Sara Ouhaddou displays one of the oldest architectural forms shared by many civilisations : the column.

By approaching these blocks of columns made of Marseille soap (heir to the soap of Aleppo) we discover strange shapes that seem to want to escape from it: foreign ceramic bodies are stuck in them. These columns change with time. As they shrink, the ceramic elements emerge like the bones of soldiers that the earth spits out years later.

Their appearance varies between the column and the block of earth taken from archaeological excavation sites, waiting to be analysed. These elements, both organic and mineral, are made from the knowledge exchanged in the Middle Ages between the Arab-Andalusian world and the city of Marseille, and are evidence of the artist’s interest in the little-known stories that created links between di erent civilisations.

On other tables are arranged some of these ceramic fragments, evoking the market stall as much as the archaeologist’s work table, the display of luxury objects as well as the museum vitrine. These objects are the pro les of the objects in the section of the museum dedicated to the Sainte-Barbe oven, designed by the archaeologists. The oven of Sainte-Barbe, (13th century) was found in the hill of the Carmes. It attests to the existence of a quarter of Arab-Andalusian potters who, for more than a century, produced objects of everyday use, the shapes of which can still be found in some kitchens. Its existence, its history and its museographic presentation were the starting points of the project that the artist developed in Marseille for more than a year.

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