Echoes

Batikh Batikh is proud to present its second exhibition at Vox Populi’s Black Box Theater. Echoes / أصداء is the first solo exhibition of work by Algerian-American artist, Kenza Bousseloub. Featuring photography and moving image material gathered over multiple trips to visit her extended family in Mila, Setif, and Algiers, Algeria, this show is also the World Premiere of Bousseloub’s documentary film, Nissa’a Djazaïriat, Voices of East Algeria. 

Echoes explores themes around time, the history of Algerian women and the emotional labor and care within North African women’s communities. Bousseloub’s photography is experienced as snippets of important events, from family dinners to weddings, in a welcoming but disorienting fashion, outside of time and place. 

The exhibition title refers to the consistent acts of strength and resistance by Algerian women, from taking part in the Algerian War of Independence against France, to the teachings and care they perform in influencing future generations. The exhibition shows varying age groups of women within an Algerian community, centering their voices when they have been overshadowed in historical narratives. 

Echoes is the beginning of an archive project by Bousseloub to preserve these materials and ensure that the lessons taught by Algerian women reverberate into the future. 

Echoes is curated by Batikh Batikh (BB) Founder, Sarah Trad. BB is a pop-up cinema and gallery that centers South-West Asian North African (SWANA) women and queer artists. BB focuses on bringing SWANA films to Philadelphia and helping local queer and women artists acquire resources for solo exhibitions at rented spaces. Based on an anti-capitalist art model, BB’s exhibition series serves as an incubator program, providing artists with mentorship, honorarium and marketing for their first solo exhibitions.