WEBVTT 00:00:01.020 --> 00:00:02.940 [COMPUTER MOUSE CLICKING] 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:10.280 ["New York Close Up"] 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:19.400 [SNEEZES] 00:00:19.400 --> 00:00:21.620 I feel like I have a hard time connecting to 00:00:21.620 --> 00:00:24.160 anything that doesn’t have humor 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:26.340 because for me, humor is like survival. 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:31.300 I can't imagine a state of no humor. 00:00:35.580 --> 00:00:38.640 [Meriem Bennani's Exploded Visions] 00:00:43.780 --> 00:00:45.579 I grew up in Rabat, Morocco 00:00:45.579 --> 00:00:48.460 and I've lived in New York for nine years. 00:00:48.460 --> 00:00:53.390 I had my first museum exhibition at PS1 last summer. 00:00:53.390 --> 00:00:56.530 I couldn’t believe it, and I tried to stay cool. 00:00:56.530 --> 00:00:58.140 But I was so excited. 00:01:01.120 --> 00:01:04.360 I had about a month and a half to prepare. 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:08.050 I had tickets to go to Morocco the next week. 00:01:08.050 --> 00:01:11.689 And I just decided I would observe and film everything 00:01:11.689 --> 00:01:15.040 and kind of have this almost diaristic archive 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:17.020 of my two weeks there. 00:01:18.490 --> 00:01:20.000 I wanted to take on this challenge 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.630 of using it in a way that I had never seen. 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:25.060 [MUSIC BEGINS PLAYING] 00:01:32.020 --> 00:01:34.760 [FLY SINGS RIHANNA'S "KISS IT BETTER"] ♪ Kiss it, kiss it better, baby ♪ 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:37.600 I made a 3-D fly in the video. 00:01:38.440 --> 00:01:40.840 And so she's taking you on this tour. 00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:43.360 She's kind of like the storyteller. 00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:49.260 One characteristic of the fly is 00:01:49.260 --> 00:01:52.240 that compound vision just formally felt like 00:01:52.240 --> 00:01:56.899 a direct analogy with the room that had, like, twelve channels 00:01:56.900 --> 00:01:59.640 and all these different points of views of video. 00:02:01.580 --> 00:02:03.060 Video for me is new. 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:06.340 What I've always done is drawing. 00:02:08.060 --> 00:02:10.080 I like that, with a video, 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:12.040 within one second, you know where you are. 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:20.920 I use footage as material, 00:02:20.920 --> 00:02:22.819 and not for its real content, 00:02:22.819 --> 00:02:24.340 but really using it as material 00:02:24.340 --> 00:02:28.310 in the direction that is completely disconnected with its reality. 00:02:29.720 --> 00:02:31.880 So I started making these little videos 00:02:31.890 --> 00:02:35.390 where I would see something and then imagine what could be added 00:02:35.390 --> 00:02:37.100 or removed or manipulated. 00:02:37.860 --> 00:02:39.700 It would be really quick, like a fifteen-second video-- 00:02:39.700 --> 00:02:42.970 which was the time on Instagram before it became a minute-- 00:02:42.970 --> 00:02:45.560 and there was a freedom that was really fun in that. 00:02:45.860 --> 00:02:47.080 [MUSIC BEGINS PLAYING] 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:00.820 This past spring, I was commissioned by Art Dubai 00:03:00.820 --> 00:03:02.930 to make an installation. 00:03:02.930 --> 00:03:05.060 And so I made these four sculptures 00:03:05.060 --> 00:03:07.480 that were actually viewing stations. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:11.980 They reference design in a way that makes you want to sit in them-- 00:03:11.990 --> 00:03:13.520 like, they feel comfortable, 00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:16.420 but then you kind of are tricked because when you sit in them 00:03:16.420 --> 00:03:20.340 your head ends up inside with a video that you are viewing. 00:03:29.260 --> 00:03:30.020 [WOMAN] Action 00:03:34.340 --> 00:03:36.860 --There is this Egyptian couple and the guy says: 00:03:37.140 --> 00:03:39.220 --"Have you seen the stars habibti?" 00:03:39.220 --> 00:03:41.260 --And the girl: "Oh habibi I have seen them indeed!" 00:03:41.260 --> 00:03:42.400 [Isn't the Residence beautiful?] 00:03:45.220 --> 00:03:46.240 [Me?] 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:48.260 [BENNANI] When I go to Morocco, 00:03:48.260 --> 00:03:52.580 I am surrounded by these women that are powerful or very charismatic. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:58.800 I filmed four women that are family members. 00:03:59.460 --> 00:04:02.160 But, at the same time, they're always in between 00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:05.120 being a family member and becoming a character. 00:04:05.860 --> 00:04:08.700 [WOMAN SPEAKING IN FRENCH] --I work as a medical representative. 00:04:09.820 --> 00:04:12.140 --I am divorced, no kids. 00:04:12.200 --> 00:04:14.500 [BENNANI] There's these two extremes, you know. 00:04:14.580 --> 00:04:17.970 On one side, I almost feel emotionally like a monster 00:04:17.970 --> 00:04:21.720 who traps family members into this digital world. 00:04:23.400 --> 00:04:25.000 And then the other extreme is like 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:25.640 [CAMERA CLICKS] 00:04:25.640 --> 00:04:28.500 fully loving and celebrating family. 00:04:29.130 --> 00:04:30.960 I feel like they're both necessary 00:04:30.970 --> 00:04:33.710 and between the friction of both of them 00:04:33.710 --> 00:04:36.500 is created all this potential for storytelling. 00:04:42.430 --> 00:04:44.940 If you think that the time spent on a piece 00:04:44.940 --> 00:04:48.090 is a hundred hours, 00:04:48.090 --> 00:04:52.120 I spent maybe one hour with them 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:54.560 and ninety-nine hours editing-- 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:56.940 looking at their face and tracking it frame by frame. 00:05:00.460 --> 00:05:03.340 They have no idea that I'm spending so much time with them 00:05:03.340 --> 00:05:04.440 while I'm in New York. 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:06.360 I like that. 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:15.530 I was invited by Public Art Fund, 00:05:15.530 --> 00:05:20.340 and I made a video piece for the Barclays Center oculus screen. 00:05:21.520 --> 00:05:24.060 The media portrays very extreme, 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:26.760 one-dimensional portraits of Muslims. 00:05:28.040 --> 00:05:31.040 Because I knew this video would exist in a public space, 00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:35.220 I felt the necessity to be more thoughtful 00:05:35.220 --> 00:05:38.120 and reflect on women who wear the hijab. 00:05:39.860 --> 00:05:41.900 The video was called "Your Year" 00:05:41.900 --> 00:05:46.740 and it was showing a timeline of secular and Muslim holidays in America. 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:51.620 I wanted it to be not jokey, 00:05:51.620 --> 00:05:54.710 but to be obviously in support of 00:05:54.710 --> 00:05:58.700 women wearing the hijab in the neighborhood where they would see the video. 00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:02.800 I had a different approach, 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:05.970 which was to actually do way more research, 00:06:05.970 --> 00:06:07.480 to talk to women who wear the hijab-- 00:06:07.480 --> 00:06:09.500 who think about it, who write about it-- 00:06:09.500 --> 00:06:11.060 in today's America. 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:15.280 Being in New York-- 00:06:15.280 --> 00:06:18.080 with Trump, after this election-- 00:06:18.540 --> 00:06:20.960 is actually affecting me in deep ways. 00:06:22.440 --> 00:06:25.480 Growing up in Morocco, I never really thought of myself, 00:06:25.490 --> 00:06:26.990 for example, as an Arab. 00:06:26.990 --> 00:06:28.200 Although I am, you know? 00:06:29.080 --> 00:06:30.760 I never thought in those terms. 00:06:31.180 --> 00:06:32.640 And being here, 00:06:32.640 --> 00:06:37.760 with the travel ban uniting seven countries into this shitty situation, 00:06:38.380 --> 00:06:40.280 for the first time I have felt it. 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:44.520 I don’t want to be a Moroccan or a Muslim woman artist. 00:06:44.520 --> 00:06:46.740 I just want to be an artist 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:49.360 who is making a project about trees. 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:51.160 --Can I touch her? 00:06:51.160 --> 00:06:52.160 --She's friendly? 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:53.260 --She doesn't bite? 00:06:53.260 --> 00:06:55.520 What this political climate does 00:06:55.520 --> 00:06:59.180 is that it asks you to think about your identity constantly. 00:07:00.620 --> 00:07:03.000 And I feel like my reaction to that 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:04.940 has been to make work that 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:09.440 itself doesn’t stick to a genre or one identity. 00:07:10.080 --> 00:07:12.400 It has to do with me not wanting to 00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:14.700 define myself into one thing.