Meriem Bennani's Exploded Visions | Art21 "New York Close Up"

[COMPUTER MOUSE CLICKING]

["New York Close Up"]

[SNEEZES]

I feel like I have a hard time
connecting to

anything that doesn’t have humor

because for me, humor is like survival.

I can't imagine a state of no humor.

[Meriem Bennani's Exploded Visions]

I grew up in Rabat, Morocco

and I've lived in New York for nine years.

I had my first museum exhibition
at PS1 last summer.

I couldn’t believe it,
and I tried to stay cool.

But I was so excited.

I had about a month and a half to prepare.

I had tickets to go to Morocco
the next week.

And I just decided I would observe
and film everything

and kind of have this almost diaristic archive

of my two weeks there.

I wanted to take on this challenge

of using it in a way that I had never seen.

[MUSIC BEGINS PLAYING]

[FLY SINGS RIHANNA'S "KISS IT BETTER"]
♪ Kiss it, kiss it better, baby ♪

I made a 3-D fly in the video.

And so she's taking you on this tour.

She's kind of like the storyteller.

One characteristic of the fly is

that compound vision just formally felt like

a direct analogy with the room that had, like,
twelve channels

and all these different
points of views of video.

Video for me is new.

What I've always done is drawing.

I like that, with a video,

within one second, you know where you are.

I use footage as material,

and not for its real content,

but really using it as material

in the direction that is completely disconnected
with its reality.

So I started making these little videos

where I would see something and then imagine
what could be added

or removed or manipulated.

It would be really quick,
like a fifteen-second video--

which was the time on Instagram before it
became a minute--

and there was a freedom that was
really fun in that.

[MUSIC BEGINS PLAYING]

This past spring,
I was commissioned by Art Dubai

to make an installation.

And so I made these four sculptures

that were actually viewing stations.

They reference design in a way
that makes you want to sit in them--

like, they feel comfortable,

but then you kind of are tricked
because when you sit in them

your head ends up inside
with a video that you are viewing.

[WOMAN] Action

--There is this Egyptian couple
and the guy says:

--"Have you seen the stars habibti?"

--And the girl: "Oh habibi I have
seen them indeed!"

[Isn't the Residence beautiful?]

[Me?]

[BENNANI] When I go to Morocco,

I am surrounded by these women that are
powerful or very charismatic.

I filmed four women
that are family members.

But, at the same time,
they're always in between

being a family member
and becoming a character.

[WOMAN SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
--I work as a medical representative.

--I am divorced, no kids.

[BENNANI] There's these two extremes,
you know.

On one side, I almost feel
emotionally like a monster

who traps family members
into this digital world.

And then the other extreme is like

[CAMERA CLICKS]

fully loving and celebrating family.

I feel like they're both necessary

and between the friction of both of them

is created all this potential
for storytelling.

If you think that
the time spent on a piece

is a hundred hours,

I spent maybe one hour with them

and ninety-nine hours editing--

looking at their face
and tracking it frame by frame.

They have no idea that
I'm spending so much time with them

while I'm in New York.

I like that.

I was invited by Public Art Fund,

and I made a video piece for
the Barclays Center oculus screen.

The media portrays very extreme,

one-dimensional portraits of Muslims.

Because I knew this video would
exist in a public space,

I felt the necessity to be more thoughtful

and reflect on women who wear the hijab.

The video was called "Your Year"

and it was showing a timeline of secular
and Muslim holidays in America.

I wanted it to be not jokey,

but to be obviously in support of

women wearing the hijab in the neighborhood
where they would see the video.

I had a different approach,

which was to actually do way more research,

to talk to women who wear the hijab--

who think about it,
who write about it--

in today's America.

Being in New York--

with Trump, after this election--

is actually affecting me in deep ways.

Growing up in Morocco,
I never really thought of myself,

for example, as an Arab.

Although I am, you know?

I never thought in those terms.

And being here,

with the travel ban uniting seven countries
into this shitty situation,

for the first time I have felt it.

I don’t want to be a Moroccan
or a Muslim woman artist.

I just want to be an artist

who is making a project about trees.

--Can I touch her?

--She's friendly?

--She doesn't bite?

What this political climate does

is that it asks you to think about
your identity constantly.

And I feel like my reaction to that

has been to make work that

itself doesn’t stick to a genre
or one identity.

It has to do with me not wanting to

define myself into one thing.