Samir Laghouati-Rashwan (FR/MA/EG, 1992)
Residency period: September-November 2025
instagram.com/samirlaghouatirashwan
My residency project began with a reading: Le loup et le musulman by Ghassan Hage, along with a reflection I’ve been carrying for several years in my practice around the representation of Arab men, dogs considered “violent,” and the negative projections placed onto their bodies.
During these three months, I was invited by artist Gina Proenza to write a text in connection with her solo show at La Salle de bains in Lyon, which focused on the figure of the wolf. After performing the text at the art space, I was able to use La Becque’s recording studio to record myself reading it, in order to use the voice track in what will become a sound installation.
The text is a litany of words describing, in a pejorative way, wolves, “violent” dogs, and Arab men. As the litany unfolds, it becomes unclear who or what these words are actually referring to. Alongside this list, a series of questions emerge: if humans were animals, what kind of animal would they be?
I also used my residency at La Becque to produce a series of 3D-rendered rottweiler, pitbull, and doberman heads, which will be added to the sound piece.
This time also allowed me to begin research for my upcoming performance ACTING FANTASMA, co-produced by Arsenic in Lausanne and Actoral in Marseille, as well as to finalize a film I shot in Houston during “slab car” gatherings. — Samir Laghouati-Rashwan
Based in Marseille, Samir Laghouati-Rashwan is a French/Moroccan/Egyptian artist and performer who creates narratives from archives, utilizing mediums such as film, photography, and sculpture. His work explores the politics of space and bodies, with a particular focus on representations of individuals from diasporas within mediated cultural productions and institutional artistic spaces. Creating situations that are both realistic and phantasmagorical with a tone that oscillates between amusement and vulnerability, he traces marginalized or forgotten histories and explores geographical displacement and linguistic reappropriation as evidence of systems of domination.
1-2: Samir Laghouati-Rashwan, La Becque, 2025, photo Matthieu Croizier
3-5: Samir Laghouati-Rashwan, La Becque, Open Studios, 2025, photo Aurélien Haslebacher