Yto Barrada

Yto Barrada (born 1971) is a Franco-Moroccan multimedia visual artist living and working in Tangier, Morocco and New York City.

Barrada was born in Paris, France in 1971.

Her family moved to Tangier, Morocco when she was a young girl, and Barrada claims Tangier as her hometown.

Her father Hamid Barrada, former political opponent of Hassan II and leader of the student left, is a journalist and her mother, Mounira Bouzid El Alami, activist and psychotherapist.

After living in Tangier for much of her life, Barrada returned to Paris to study at The University of Paris, also known as the Sorbonne, where she studied History and Political Science.

Shortly after graduating, Barrada studied at the International Center of Photography in New York, New York.

Now married to American film director, writer, actor, and producer Sean Gullette, Barrada splits her time between New York and Morocco.

Barrada befriended Bettina Grossman, a reclusive artist who was a longtime resident at Hotel Chelsea.

In 1998 Barrada began a work she titled A Life Full of Holes: The Strait Project, which described the static and transitory life of her hometown of Tangier.

Her photographs depict a city where thousands of immigrants attempt to make the illegal and perilous journey across the Strait of Gibraltar.

This collaborative project focuses on the asymmetries of neo-colonial relationships between North Africa and Europe as well as the disillusionment of citizens wishing to leave Morocco for a different life in the North.

This was Barrada's first large-scale exhibition in Germany, and it constituted works from her previous shows (A Life Full of Holes: The Strait Project (1998-2004) and Iris Tingitana (2007)) as well as new work.

The title, Riffs, contains references to music and rhythm as well as the Rif mountains of Morocco.

Barrada's first photographic series, A Life Full of Holes: The Strait Project, was a collaborative project that took place between 1999 and 2003.

Barrada later used this title for her book (2005).

Barrada cofounded the Cinémathèque de Tanger in 2006, leading a group of artists and filmmakers.

Barrada also works as an artistic director for the Tangier art house movie theatre.

She was previously a member of the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation.

The Strait of Gibraltar appears as a theme again in Barrada's series The Sleepers, from 2006, in which she depicts subjects lying down in public spaces.

Barrada has presented her work in several galleries, such as Galerie Polaris in Paris.

In 2006 she cofounded Cinémathèque de Tanger, North Africa's first art house cinema and film archive.

Her 2007 work, Iris Tingitana Project, showed the meeting of botanical and urban landscapes.

This series focuses on the disappearance of Iris flowers, found in Tangier, that symbolize resistance because they grow in even the most difficult situations.

This exhibition depicts Barrada's focus on the landscape and heritage of her home within her art.

The exhibit contained three films, Beau Geste (2009), Playground (2010), and Hand-Me-Downs (2011), which all spoke to the ideas of riffs, resistance, strength, and memory.

This exhibit specifically touched on Morocco's artistic and cinematic history through commissioned vintage movie posters and Barrada's sculpture Palm Sign (2010).

This exhibition was curated by Sheryl Mousley and Clara Kim.

In April 2011, her solo exhibition Riffs opened at the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2011), and then travelled to Wiels, Brussels in September, and in Ikon Gallery, Birmingham the following June.

Here, Barrada once again showed the film Hand-Me-Downs (2011) and exhibited work depicting life in Tangier.

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota exhibited Album: Cinématèque Tangier, a project by Yto Barrada from 21 November 2013 to 18 May 2014.

This exhibition pulled from several of Barrada's projects at the time including North African Toy Series (2015) and Untitled (Orthoceras Coca-Cola bottles) (2016).

Faux Guide presented viewers with ideas about how the natural world and human world are intertwined.

In 2016, Barrada presented the exhibition Faux Guide at The Power Plant in Toronto, Ontario, depicting issues and images of post-colonial Morocco.

This was a solo exhibit for Barrada that dealt with ongoing fossil exploration and the natural history of Morocco along what is known as "Dinosaur Road," where the fossil industry is most prevalent.

Barrada and Grossman collaborated on an exhibition called The Power of Two Suns, which was on view at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Arts Center at Governors Island in 2019.

Barrada is working on a catalogue raisonné of Grossman's work.

From 25 September – 22 December 2019, Barrada's exhibition Dye Garden was on display at the Neuberger Museum of Art in New York following Barrada's award of the 2019 Roy R. Neuberger Prize.

This exhibition includes video, photos, sculpture, and hand-dyed textiles inspired by her background, family history, and the West's history of colonization.

All of the artwork in Dye Garden relates to the geology and botany of North Africa, a topic Barrada continues to return to, process, and relate to.

This exhibit was originally presented at the American Academy in Rome during Barrada's residency there, and 2019 is the first time it has been shown in the United States.