The NYC launch will take place on 14 March at Cara Space at 7pm.

Before the launch, I'll be performing the traditional Djerbian way of selling fish and bidding. For good luck.

About / Artist statement

Born on Djerba, an island off the coast of southern Tunisia, Rafram Chaddad (b. 1976) is an artist whose photographs, films, and multi-media installations rethink the archive, migration narratives, and what it means to belong. His work makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar.

Since 2019, he has been conducting research for Leftovers, an upcoming book investigating how food practices in cities formerly occupied by the Ottoman Empire are inter-connected. The book highlights recipes particular to each place and oral histories around food-making that challenge the nationalization of food and encourage us to approach food as a shared experience.

Based in Tunis, Rafram’s work reflects on his personal life experiences and comments on broader socio-political issues including migration and displacement, identity and belonging.

Over the past twenty years, he’s created dozens of short films and installations, which have exhibited worldwide in cultural institutions, galleries, and museums, including: Kunst im Tunnel, Dusseldorf; Kunstraum, New York; Kayu Lucie Fontaine Gallery, Bali; Lucie Fontaine, Milan; ArteEast foundation, New York; Halle 14, Leipzig; and Zalatimo, east Jerusalem. Chaddad has held solo shows at B7L9, Mucem Museum in Marseilles and the Maximilian Forum in Munich.

In 2021 Chaddad was a guest critic in the MFA program of Columbia University.