HERE, ELSEWHERE, THE EVILS
Oussama Tabti offers us his vision of the world through his work, that of a young man born in Algiers in 1988, who is critical of hermetic geopolitics _ made up of impassable borders and cultures that close in on themselves.
Oussama Tabti also proposes an analysis of the educational system in which he grew up, of the absurdity and mismanagement that encountered in every part of the country. He denounces, in his own way, the difficulty of movement in a globalised yet suspicious world, one frightened by the foreigner and afraid of difference.
The question the artist asks us is this: does the gaze change when the place changes? For Oussama Tabti, the verdict is clear: he says “ntouma”, (the plural form of you in English), then concludes with “la Roma*”!
Wherever one lives, whatever one does, the world remains closed and prejudices remain operative.
The willed mindlessness of the masses, if presented in other forms, is more present than ever. Always indecent, the evils of the world reveal themselves to us and catch us, wherever we go.
The artist casts an engaged gaze that confirms the position of Frantz Fanon, who confided: ” The density of history determines none of my actions. I am my own foundation. And it is by going beyond the historical, the instrumental, that I introduce the course of my freedom” Oussama Tabti proves to us that for him, the course has begun!
Samir Toumi | Writer and founder of La baignoire
Text of « Ni Rome ni vous » Solo exhibition, La Baignoire, Algiers 2017.