Zineb Sedira: Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go

Zineb Sedira’s exhibition Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go is about culture and resistance, about time, place and identity. Focusing on Algeria’s capital Algiers which, during the 1960s, was a hub for freedom-fighting organisations, Sedira presents the Pan African Festival 1969 as an example of how culture contributed to a unique spirit of solidarity that developed throughout the world.

The exhibition at Bildmuseet features a replica of the artist’s living room, a diorama adorned with furniture, books and interior details. Photomontages, album covers, books and films all evoke this time and movement. A large portion of Sedira’s work is autobiographical. It is based on her view of herself and her family’s history in Algeria, France and Great Britain, not least from postcolonial perspectives. The transmission of memories between generations and the fragility of memories are recurring themes.

Sedira examines the relationship between collective and subjective memories; how events and phenomena are experienced in different ways by different people and how source material can be interpreted differently depending on the context in which it is presented. The exhibition title, Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go, is borrowed from a gospel song by the American singer Marion Williams (1927–1994). It expresses a sense of uncertainty that is eminently relevant here and now, just as it was in the period embodied by this work of art.

Zineb Sedira (b. 1963, France, based in the UK) will represent France at the 2022 Venice Biennale. She has exhibited around the world, including in solo exhibitions at the Jeu de Paume, Paris; Beirut Art Center, Beirut; the Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, as well as in group exhibitions at the Tate Britain, London; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Mori Museum, Tokyo and several art biennials, including the Venice Biennale and the Sharjah Biennale. In 2010, her art was presented in a large solo exhibition at Bildmuseet.

Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go was commissioned by Bildmuseet in collaboration with the Gulbenkian in Lisbon, Portugal; Jeu de Paume in Paris, France; and IVAM in Valencia, Spain. The exhibition has been produced with support from the Institut Français de Suède.