WEBVTT 00:00:09.140 --> 00:00:12.400 We're in the middle of installing "Party on the CAPS". 00:00:14.150 --> 00:00:16.180 So this curved wall that we picked up in three parts, 00:00:16.180 --> 00:00:17.630 it's going to be put together, 00:00:17.630 --> 00:00:18.630 painted, 00:00:18.630 --> 00:00:19.980 and then eventually installed. 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:22.280 That will be, actually, a screen. 00:00:27.560 --> 00:00:29.480 I have these parameters, 00:00:29.490 --> 00:00:30.849 which is the sound, 00:00:30.849 --> 00:00:32.880 the editing, the animation. 00:00:34.300 --> 00:00:36.620 Everything is designed for the film. 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:40.540 Then I add the space-- 00:00:40.559 --> 00:00:41.860 how many screens, 00:00:41.860 --> 00:00:42.740 the scale. 00:00:43.580 --> 00:00:46.120 So, everything is coming together, 00:00:46.130 --> 00:00:47.320 and then the final touch is: 00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:51.840 the video finally makes it onto the surfaces that we built for it. 00:00:54.970 --> 00:00:58.040 The problem is, things that are level never look straight. 00:00:58.040 --> 00:01:01.150 This is the step where I get to edit my film, 00:01:01.150 --> 00:01:03.320 but using space instead of time. 00:01:03.900 --> 00:01:06.820 I go shot by shot, 00:01:06.820 --> 00:01:10.060 and for each shot, decide what do you see where. 00:01:11.580 --> 00:01:12.580 I can make cuts, 00:01:12.580 --> 00:01:14.760 but I can also show something in different places. 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:17.960 That has an effect on how you experience the film. 00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:26.380 ["Meriem Bennani: In Between Languages"] 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:32.820 The sculptures started happening with the films in mind. 00:01:34.300 --> 00:01:37.920 So I never made a sculpture that's not paired with a film. 00:01:40.380 --> 00:01:42.940 You bring into it things that are 00:01:42.940 --> 00:01:46.360 characteristics of another way of thinking. 00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:53.940 You learn something from animation 00:01:53.940 --> 00:01:55.400 that has to do with humor. 00:02:02.460 --> 00:02:04.620 And then you can make sculptures that are funny. 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:09.539 So I'll have the master version of the video-- 00:02:09.540 --> 00:02:11.660 that is what you would watch as a film-- 00:02:15.020 --> 00:02:16.720 and then the sculptures, 00:02:16.720 --> 00:02:19.520 they come from a digital world 00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:20.760 that I imagine. 00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:25.780 Then they're fabricated. 00:02:26.120 --> 00:02:29.380 So they all come from opposite places and they meet in the middle. 00:02:32.940 --> 00:02:34.960 [SOUND OF SCHOOL BELL RINGING] 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:39.180 I went to the high school I went to in Rabat, Morocco, 00:02:40.620 --> 00:02:43.580 and I filmed a group of teenagers. 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:47.280 ["Mission Teens"] 00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:57.120 The subject of "MISSION TEENS" is the French-speaking culture in Morocco. 00:02:57.139 --> 00:03:00.569 [WOMAN, IN FRENCH] --So I've been in the French system 00:03:00.569 --> 00:03:02.040 --since... 00:03:02.060 --> 00:03:03.580 --basically since kindergarten. 00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:04.800 [BENNANI] The biggest tool for the way 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:06.290 that French maintain this power 00:03:06.290 --> 00:03:07.290 is education. 00:03:07.290 --> 00:03:09.980 [SHEEP, IN FRENCH] --Having your kids at the Mission is... 00:03:10.580 --> 00:03:12.020 --is prestigious! 00:03:12.040 --> 00:03:13.240 [BENNANI] The film is not about how 00:03:13.249 --> 00:03:15.129 French is not a Moroccan language, 00:03:15.129 --> 00:03:18.409 but it's more so about why French is political 00:03:18.409 --> 00:03:19.939 and also a soft power tool. 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:24.260 [TEACHER, OFF-SCREEN, IN FRENCH] --So, the definition of Third World is 00:03:24.260 --> 00:03:25.600 something you need to master! 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:28.240 [BENNANI] I was French educated. 00:03:28.660 --> 00:03:31.580 I learned about French history, 00:03:31.580 --> 00:03:32.580 French geography. 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:33.819 The ways that I thought are 00:03:33.819 --> 00:03:36.360 like the way that I developed being able to be critical-- 00:03:36.360 --> 00:03:39.280 all these things are complete products of French school. 00:03:40.480 --> 00:03:42.640 I had to emancipate myself from that 00:03:42.650 --> 00:03:44.130 to be able to talk about it. 00:03:44.130 --> 00:03:46.340 [WOMAN, IN FRENCH] --The French Mission it's that we don't focus 00:03:46.340 --> 00:03:48.549 --so much on the country we live in. 00:03:48.549 --> 00:03:51.380 --Knowing that, even if it's a French school, but it's like, 00:03:51.380 --> 00:03:54.340 --we're in Morocco and I would like it if 00:03:54.340 --> 00:03:59.200 --they focused more on Morocco and Islam and everything. 00:04:02.980 --> 00:04:05.540 [HOUSE, SINGING] --I'm a fancy house in Rabat... 00:04:05.540 --> 00:04:07.940 [BENNANI] Also, I filmed houses from the neighborhoods 00:04:07.940 --> 00:04:11.040 where most people who go to French school live. 00:04:11.200 --> 00:04:13.760 [HOUSE, SINGING] --Got me up a golden door. 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:17.500 --I'm very much what everyone admires. 00:04:17.500 --> 00:04:18.900 [BENNANI] From the architecture, 00:04:18.900 --> 00:04:21.600 you can see what lifestyle people aspire to. 00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:23.720 "MISSION TEENS," 00:04:23.720 --> 00:04:25.940 it's first been shown here at the Whitney Biennial, 00:04:25.940 --> 00:04:28.080 inside these sculptures on the terrace. 00:04:29.340 --> 00:04:30.680 I called them "viewing stations." 00:04:31.960 --> 00:04:33.680 [HOUSE, SINGING] --Palm trees. 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:35.380 --Marble floors. 00:04:37.860 --> 00:04:40.039 [BENNANI] When you press the button, 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:42.120 it actually steals the video from the other side. 00:04:43.200 --> 00:04:45.420 The other person on the other side presses the button as well. 00:04:45.420 --> 00:04:48.160 So it becomes about having to coexist. 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:48.660 [LAUGHS] 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:54.180 The themes I choose for my work, 00:04:54.190 --> 00:04:56.360 I don't make a conscious choice of being like, 00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:58.580 "I want to talk about post-colonialism." 00:04:58.580 --> 00:04:59.720 I try to... 00:05:00.520 --> 00:05:04.880 follow what I spontaneously am drawn to. 00:05:22.700 --> 00:05:24.320 In "Party on the CAPS," 00:05:25.940 --> 00:05:29.880 I imagined a world where teleportation is possible. 00:05:29.960 --> 00:05:32.840 [ALLIGATOR] --Remember when teleportation replaced airplanes? 00:05:33.780 --> 00:05:37.440 [BENNANI] It's kind of like thinking about immigration in the future. 00:05:37.440 --> 00:05:38.880 ["America's bouncer"] --You can't come in. 00:05:38.880 --> 00:05:40.560 --You can't come in. 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:44.440 [BENNANI] Europe and America would freak out about their borders 00:05:44.440 --> 00:05:46.000 if teleportation was possible. 00:05:54.569 --> 00:05:57.370 The Caps is an island in the middle of the Atlantic. 00:05:57.370 --> 00:06:00.490 That is a place where American troopers-- 00:06:00.490 --> 00:06:03.289 which is like a new version of I.C.E., kind of-- 00:06:03.289 --> 00:06:09.389 has put people that have been intercepted from Africa trying to teleport to America. 00:06:09.389 --> 00:06:12.240 And then the place has become a place of its own. 00:06:15.060 --> 00:06:17.300 The whole island of The Caps 00:06:17.300 --> 00:06:20.469 is a physical analogy for the idea of diaspora-- 00:06:20.469 --> 00:06:24.330 how people think of diaspora as either having to fully assimilate 00:06:24.330 --> 00:06:26.530 or return to the land they come from. 00:06:26.530 --> 00:06:28.930 But that actually there's a third alternative, 00:06:28.930 --> 00:06:30.920 which is in that in-between. 00:06:32.340 --> 00:06:35.700 --Can you have the starting point be where the lens would be? 00:06:38.320 --> 00:06:40.180 --See, the screen should come here. 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:44.040 Usually when something interests me, 00:06:44.040 --> 00:06:47.500 I'm not able to clarify at first why I'm interested in it. 00:06:47.860 --> 00:06:51.340 So that effort to articulate that interest, 00:06:51.340 --> 00:06:52.460 that's the work. 00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:55.600 I haven't been able to express myself 00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:58.540 or articulate myself with words as well as I would like to. 00:06:58.920 --> 00:07:02.020 I think that has to do with being here for ten years 00:07:02.020 --> 00:07:04.120 and being English-as-a-second-language, 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:07.700 and feeling like I'm losing a bit of my first language, 00:07:07.700 --> 00:07:09.300 which is a very strange feeling. 00:07:09.940 --> 00:07:12.539 I've always been in between languages. 00:07:12.540 --> 00:07:17.580 I found that developing this practice that pulls from so many different languages-- 00:07:17.880 --> 00:07:18.800 of TV, 00:07:19.200 --> 00:07:20.220 cinema, 00:07:20.229 --> 00:07:22.039 sculpture and installation-- 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:26.700 mixing it all together has allowed me to hit the right note, 00:07:26.700 --> 00:07:27.740 in my own way.