PAPER
Conversation
The Human condition,
dates and other allusions
A conversation with artist Mostafa Saifi Rahmouni. Born in Morocco in 1991, he lives and works between Brussels and Rabat.
Thus, this engagement considers Mostafa Saifi Rahmouni’s world making practice in a way where his artworks become reference points like characters rather then annotations.
His artworks demand space - not necessarily in terms of physical grandeur, but through their intricate unravelling of things seen, experienced, and heard. And it’s not pretty. Aesthetically, it is seductive - the materials, the surfaces, the subtle visual prompts lead you into complex worlds. Of course, no one tells you how deep to venture in, but their expansion draws you in far. It’s that thing when you look at an incredibly detailed image: you need time to digest all the information, and then you keep discovering even more until it becomes like a visual head rush. Only, most of Mostafa’s works are rather subdued - quiet and gently violent. It is the poetics of the personal and the collective that make it, the human condition that is shockingly familiar.
Working primarily in sculpture and photography, he navigates physical and psychological landscapes by reproducing them into forms that suggest more than they reveal, touching on the strong, universal preoccupations that bind life and death. These works often gesture toward a metaphorical relationship - one that opens up multiple layers of interpretation. Friction and contrast are central to his approach: poetry meets rawness, chance collides with intention. What emerges is a space for ambiguity, but in the end, there is something incredibly hopeful about it.
Nisha Merit
In a previous interview, you have said that for you “photography is not two-dimensional, but a sculptural medium,” which I find interesting considering that your works often feel generous. They have the tendency to expand beyond their physicality into the design and architecture of the space - something that is usually achieved with a meticulous curatorial engagement or a commission with the space already in mind. Could you expand on photography as sculpture and the interaction with the space - conceptually and spatially?
Mostafa Saifi Rahmouni
I don't only consider it, it's something necessary for me and it gives me a lot of joy. At the beginning, I didn't know much about contemporary art, so I wanted ot become an object designer. That’s why I have this love for materials and this love for space. Through combining these two elements, choosing the materials, their symbolic meaning, and then dealing with the space, I started to work as a sculptor. And then I got introduced to photography. But I'm not an academic; I didn't study photography. That’s why my approach to photography is based on sculpture. I see the photographic medium as one layer to express myself, which extends to the materiality of each photograph and how it's presented. Sometimes it's just on two hooks, or it becomes a light box - it’s always different. The photograph itself makes 60 or 70% of the work, and sometimes it takes years before I come up with a full package for it to become sculptural.
NM
Speaking of the importance of space and its psychology in your presentations, you also consider quite carefully the titles of your works. They always feel like an intentional and additional layer to the work - not necessarily as an entry point to ‘understand’ the work, but to give an important prompt for further discovery - a puzzle piece, maybe? What is your process of titling, of adding that access to your works?
MSR
While I try to make my work highly concentrated, the title often gives you an additional layer of either a contradiction or just opening it up. The work speaks of a global view, but the title gives you a certain opportunity for a reference point. For example, the photo of the cemetery with thousands and thousands of graves. The title came after I had a discussion with my father - it was one of the first works I showed to him. And we both said, this is why it's the city of the dead. But since he studied philosophy, we started questioning this whole process, and he came up with The City of the Living. Who actually knows who the dead are? Who are the living? When you start thinking in this way, it opens so much more imagination of what life and death is, also in reference to life after death, and I find it very poetic. You have to keep in mind that for me, my work is an emotion. I receive an emotion, and I convert it in my way to then transmit it again. All these elements are important - what we see, the type of medium, how it's shown. That is why it had to be a light box installation. I wanted it to be the only source of light, coming from the context itself. Plus, the title puts you in a certain condition or emotion, and people really tend to go deeper into the work when they see all these elements.
I have another work - The Return - by the way, I showed it only once, that was in Berlin. When you see this photo, a human brain will think, oh, they are going to be slaughtered. Here I play with the frame and access to information. The viewer does not have all the background, but I do. In fact, these sheep were unsold animals, and they are going back to the field. Nobody has this information, but I decided to add a prompt just to disrupt the way of comprehending the work. I actually do that quite often - playing with the contrasts.
NM
I really enjoy that because it also invites people to question their own preconceived notion of the world in a way. I find you play a lot with that ambivalence of reality, of a truth or view of something, and therefore the viewer is forced into a more active role?
MSR
I do put a lot of consideration into a title. I have had works that for years were untitled because I would never put just whatever until I have the right one. I also had another work that shows a big avenue with a lot of sheepskins, like dunes of sheepskins. You see people walking - a father walking with two little kids and others. Normal life. But from the outside it looks like a genocide; the surrounding is dirty... so it is a huge contrast. I titled it The Feast Day. And of course, I play with the words, but in reality, it's a real feast day. It's a holiday, and people dress in their nice clothes, all white and everything.
NM
Your productions are intricate and considered in all aspects. When we first met, you were engaged in a long-term research project. How does a work or body of work start? What is the initiation? Do you have specific themes or questions you work on? What does your research practice look like?
MSR
So far I only have one research project - that's the one I just finished the first chapter of. I got funding from the Flemish government for it. That's also why I went to South Africa. For this project, I look at animals or the objectivization of other species by human beings. Before that, I had never done a research-driven project. I was rather freestyle in my work. I just go, I travel nonstop, and my eyes are sharp. I know where I have to go to find material, but there is a lot of coincidence in my work too. I call it life brings me the subject. I really believe in that. This thing, this situation comes to me, and I capture it.
Very few works resolve from the body somehow, you know, an idea that ferments for a long time to take shape. Like Looking for Truth.
The research project came about because I noticed that more than half of my portfolio contained the presence of animals. That was completely unconscious. And I said, fuck, this is really interesting. I don't know why I'm doing that. And for the first time, I decided to structure my practice. First, I felt ashamed of using all that time for one element, but then I really went for it. The first chapter will be shown in the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens – EMΣT. Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives is a major group exhibition that centres on animal rights and animal well-being, highlighting the need to recognise and defend the lives of non-human animals in an anthropocentric world that marginalises, oppresses, and brutalises them.
NM
Listening to you, it feels like there is a sense of urgency in your work that just comes when it comes. When you describe that you don't necessarily work long-term research-related, but you see the world, and then there's an immediacy and an urgency of capturing it. Of bearing witness but also of transforming it into something else, or translating it into a sculpture, for example. Has the creative process of the research shaped your practice in a way?
MSR
Good question. Something changed, but not fundamentally. It just gave me an additional tool because I didn't know how to work like this. Now I have this background, working with a budget and a professional production. And I really like it a lot, but it doesn't mean that I would only work like this. I need to be free in my way and follow the wind, you know, as a sculptor. But now I'm able to solve one problem, which is when a subject repeats itself a lot, or an image repeats itself, to understand the need to dive in. Being conscious about it, I'm not afraid of that anymore.
When I was in South Africa, going to these specific markets, looking for very specific things. Or when I was in the archives of museums like the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium. I was like a kid when I went to the archives. I forgot about my age, I forgot about who I am and what I do, why I'm here - like a kid in a toy store. It was really incredible. Because sometimes it becomes a bit too professional, too serious. With curators and institutions behind you, you get access to more things than just yourself. But that being said, I will always be a freestyler as well. It's highly important to have these coincidences, and you can structure everything as much as you want, but being a student of life, you can never do better.
NM
Another thing I find really interesting about your work is that it often hints at something without fully revealing it. It's more suggestive than declarative. Engaging with it feels like puzzle pieces connecting to a larger reflection on the human condition. And sometimes, even though there might be a direct, almost piercing view, you tend to lead the viewer into another direction midway. So all these different layers of truth and materiality, all these different layers of meaning and meaning-making. In that, the trickster comes to mind - playing with people's perception while in the process revealing more about the viewer than about the work. And I wonder if you can respond to that interpretation?
MSR
Completely. It is something that you see very often in my work. It's this presence and absence. And it's there, but it's not there - or at least it's there, but you don't see it. This work I had shown in the M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp.
It's a sculpture. To see the actual work, you have to come close, bow down a bit to see the photograph. It’s heroin - titled The Parallel. I engage with a lot of very tough subjects. And the question is, how can you talk about, or how can you present something like that, without chasing people away? They say: “I see what this is, and I'm not going to approach it.” So I created this whole sculpture with that lightbox inside, and then you dive in, and it creates such an intimate moment. Or here is another example: Seed Dispersal from my last show. What do you see?
NM
It's hard to tell. It's sunset, everything looks very golden, but it also looks like a landfill.
MSR
Yes, you have this very poetic photo, you have the sunset, this tree in the middle and everything. But when you look closely, you start recognizing other elements, like there in the middle. For example, this is a plastic bottle in the middle. And in fact, the more you look at it, the more you see, as you get used to the dark and you start getting in. And then you start to realize, all you see here is plastic. Everything. There is no ground. There is no soil, it's plastic till the horizon. So of course, a lot of people pass by without noticing and they just say it's a beautiful landscape. It doesn't matter if they see it or not. I'm more than happy because it's not about beauty itself. But these contrasts are highly important. I showed these two works together. Can you tell me what you see?
NM
It looks like poop, some animal faeces. OK, and some I don't know what kind of—wait, are these dates?
MSR
Wow, that's impressive. You are the first person to recognize that. Yeah, it's dog poop. These dogs eat dates exclusively because there is nothing else there. They eat the whole date, including the seed, and they shit everything. I titled both of them Seed Dispersal. With the latter, I wanted to push the idea much further because it would be easy to think that the landfill must be in the Global South - not civilized, easy thing. These two works are the bridge between my general work and my new research of animals. I also wanted to address the idea of a primitive gesture - throwing. It's not only a highly primitive gesture, but it's essential for nature. Do you know how an oasis is being formed?
Nomadic people, whose primary nutrition often comes from dates. As they move through the desert in constant search of water, they eat dates and then throw the pits away. They might stay in one place for a few weeks or a month, then move on. Ten years later, you have an oasis. So this gesture of throwing is important to nature, but now the problem is that we use so much plastic, and we have to modify our primitive actions. And obviously, it's a Western thing and it comes from the Global North. That is why I also titled this Seed Dispersal, even though there are no seeds.
NM
The multi-layeredness is intense and intriguing because you can talk about tough and complex issues without throwing it into people's faces. Everyone decides in a way how much to peel back and confront their own worldviews and perception of connection, which I think is crucial in your work. The way you hold the viewer accountable, no matter how far removed one feels to the topics - somehow it hits home.
MSR
There are always several layers of reading. This one as well - The Intermediary. It was one of the first. And here, people often see this beautiful landscape. A landscape repeating itself. These forms, like very beautiful waves in a desert. They have said everything about this piece, and then you reveal that it's a butcher's block and it was sculpted unconsciously by the butcher’s knife. You see the sudden cold shiver in people's faces. I'm interested in all these subjects around survival, around life, around death, around struggling and finding solutions. And in all is the Global South, because I grew up in it.
Sometimes these subjects are quite hard - when you deal with death or torture - and it's always the question of how do you present it? Because it's easy to show a bloody image, but nobody wants to see it. And that’s not the goal. That is where the creative force and materiality of art comes in. I'm trying to find the solution to something that is not easily watchable and make it accessible. And it's a hard thing, but I learned how to deal with that.
That is also where the materiality comes into play, you asked about at the beginning. Because it makes it much more accessible - like Looking for Truth, for example. Of course, the subject itself is unspeakable. It is highly complicated and hard to comprehend. But then you make it so people, when they see the work, they want to approach it. They want to feel the material because it is solid. The glass, the bottle, and the chair are all one line and minimal. So its purity and simplicity make it approachable.
NM
This brings me to my next question about violence, which seems to be quite a significant issue in your work. And it's recurring. But it's recurring not just as a topic, but also made into form, like the Looking For Truth. And here again, the surface—the aesthetic of your sculptures (also photography) - unravels only slowly. You have to get really close. There's this intimacy between the body and your sculpture. Because from far away, you think it's a beautiful object, almost innocent. You think you've got it. You're safe. You're fine. And then you get closer and closer. And now the material transforms into this often violent moment you have to work through as a viewer. As an artist, you're not giving an easy answer. Rather, you are presenting a complex humaneness of the world. That being said, can you elaborate on that?
MSR
That comes in a very natural way. I have one word I don't really like and never know how it's going to be understood. But there is no better word than vomit. Because in a purely scientific way, vomiting is not your decision - it's your body that rejects something. It doesn't ask for your opinion. So this violence is not something I declared as my subject, but it is present in so many ways. I grew up in that context, although not my generation, but the trauma is still in the air somehow in Morocco. That's when you think of torture, you think of a bottle, which becomes one and the same thing. And when you grow up, it stays in you until it has to come out. And that's why I call it vomiting.
But I want to come back to the spatial aspect here. I had a solo show, and the space was around 500 square meters with high ceilings of like 15 meters. And here, almost half of the space I dedicated to the chair. And wherever you went, it would lead you to the work at the end of this apex. So the interplay between space and work here was highly important because of the depth of the work. It really resonated with the space. In general, it is important to keep the balance between empty space around the work to give time and space to digest what you have seen.
NM
While there is pain and violence, I find you also often use beauty and humour, even tenderness, in your work. So, I wanted us to talk about hope and resilience and the beauty of life that swings within your work.
MSR
That's me, that's how I live. Hope and positivism and life really reflect me. And I hope that my work will lead to this somehow. In fact, I have another work that resonates with that. This photo of a fully burned car, titled Art Education. And then you have this book, which is an art education manual for kids. I don't know how it ended up there, but it did, and it was amazing to find it. This fragile paper against this burned metal that talks about art education and kids and everything. You have nothing more fragile and beautiful than life. There's nothing left, but still there is.
I always play with the largest contrast - I am constantly moving on a very thin line between the explosion of life and a place that seems non-viable for life. It’s the same with the graveyard photo - The City of the Living - that's also a lot of people that visit, and you have flowers everywhere. You have colors and plants and light, and you hear birds, you hear the sea, you hear waves. You realize where we are. Can you talk about the explosion of life when you're surrounded by hundreds of thousands of graves?
NM
It is very poignant because that's what it is. So many lives were lived. We are in this massive web of time and space, and everything is moving. It reminds me also of that compulsion of holding on to something. And the negation of death and the negation of an end is rather strange because it is part of us. We can't ignore it. So the reverse is life, and that's where I find the tenderness in your work often comes from. That thing that is so devastating is not just devastating in an isolated way. It is integrated into a network of life too.
Full bronze
©SilviaCappellari, AlainPierot_Iselp
Lightbox
©MHKA_clinckx
Projected Image
©Rosalux
Digital print on paper,
painted aluminium sheet, ropes
©RebekkaLöffler
Oak, glass
©MHKA_clinckx
Digital print on Paper, wood, gold leafs, laminated on aluminium
100 x 130 x 16 cm
©EMST Museum
Stainlesssteel, light, plastic,
print on Bakelite
©MHKA_clinckx
Stainlesssteel, light, plastic,
print on Bakelite
(detail)
Digital print on paper, aluminiumplate, wallpainting
©Pierot_Iselp
Digital print on paper, aluminiumplate, wallpainting
©Pierot_Iselp
Wood
©MarcoPinarelli_AshkalAlwan
Digital print on paper