The Afreximbank Curated Spotlight at this year’s 1-54 London presents Do you hear the landscape?, an exhibition that brings together a constellation of Algerian artists across painting, photography and video installation. Taking its title from writer Mohammed Dib, the exhibition explores the landscape as both a reflection of the self and a space of shared memory, resistance, and resilience.
By weaving together multiple aesthetic languages, the presentation offers a fragment of Algeria’s contemporary scene, a dialogue between past and present, individual and collective, memory and imagination. Featured artists include Naserdinne Bennacer, Sadek Rahim, Hellal Zoubir, Mehdi Djellil, Amina Zoubir, and Collective 220.
This project is supported by Afreximbank under the auspices of the Afreximbank Art Program.
Taking its title from a reflection by the Algerian writer Mohammed Dib, the presentation explores the idea of landscape as both an origin and a mirror of human experience. As Dib suggests, the landscape is where life begins and where consciousness unfolds; it is also where memory and identity continually return. This philosophical entry point frames Bouchenak’s curatorial approach, situating the Algerian artistic scene within a terrain shaped by cultural richness, historical transitions, and multiple forms of resilience.
To represent the artistic scene of an entire country is, by nature, an impossible task. Instead of attempting to encapsulate Algerian art in its entirety, Do you hear the landscape? proposes an immersive fragment, a constellation of voices that collectively evoke Algeria’s complexity without claiming to define it.
The exhibition highlights how Algerian artists navigate between past and present, continuity and rupture, the intimate and the collective. It acknowledges Algeria’s cultural diversity and vast geography while also addressing the enduring marks of colonial history and political transition. Within these shifting contexts, art becomes both a language of expression and a mode of resistance, opening spaces of dialogue and free thought.
Featured Artists and Works
The Afreximbank Curated Spotlight brings together six artists whose practices span painting, photography, video, sculpture, and installation:
Mehdi Djellil presents expressive canvases such as Dionysos (2025) and Héra (2025), works marked by bold gestures and dynamic colour fields that reimagine mythological narratives through contemporary eyes.
Amina Zoubir contributes We cannot impede a star from shining (2019), a delicate wax sculpture that speaks to persistence and luminosity in the face of constraint.
Hellal Zoubir, a pivotal figure in Algerian contemporary art, shows Le chat noir (2020), a commanding oil on canvas that reflects his ongoing exploration of symbolism, politics, and visual language.
Sadek Rahim exhibits Made in USSR (2019), an installation combining a rug and injection pump, evoking questions of geopolitics, memory, and material culture.
Naserdinne Bennacer contributes Go with the flow (2017), a work on Japanese paper mounted on canvas that engages with abstraction and movement.
Collective 220, a multidisciplinary group including Abdo Shanan, Youcef Krache, Lynn S.K., Houari Bouchenak, and others, presents Postcards from a place unknown to you (2025), a video project offering alternative narratives of Algeria, situated between the personal and the collective, the familiar and the unfamiliar.
A Curated Vision
Curator Houari Bouchenak positions the exhibition not as a definitive statement on Algerian contemporary art but as a moment of encounter. His selection underscores the multiplicity of artistic languages at work in Algeria today, voices of care, resistance, and imagination that resist reduction to a single narrative.
For Bouchenak, the “landscape” is not merely geographical but also symbolic: a reflection of self, society, and the encounter with the Other. In this sense, the exhibition becomes a journey through layers of meaning, where visitors are invited to move from one work to another as though traversing different terrains, each revealing new discoveries and resonances.
A Partnership for Artistic Exchange
The Afreximbank Curated Spotlight reflects the Bank’s commitment to supporting cultural production and fostering connections between African artists and global audiences. By collaborating with 1-54, Afreximbank helps bring new visibility to underrepresented art scenes, while also creating opportunities for dialogue across borders.
Do you hear the landscape? positions Algerian artists within a broader international context, contributing to the fair’s mission of showcasing the richness and diversity of contemporary African art and its diasporas.
Source: 1-54 London
