Artists in residence

Born in Rabat in 1984, Zineb Benjelloun is an artist trained in fine arts and documentary filmmaking. Since 2013, her practice has focused on drawing and writing.

The forms that her works take are cartography, graphic novels and illustration. Her work focuses on the relationship between the intimate and the collective, and seeks to understand how history shapes us as individuals and societies. By dissecting the everyday life in her graphic narratives, she questions dominant discourses and acquired knowledge.

Zineb Benjelloun has exhibited in Morocco and abroad, including La Gaîté lyrique in Paris, Voice Gallery in Marrakech, Ministerium für Illustration in Berlin, the Cité de la bande dessinée in Angoulême and the Tanit Gallery in Beirut. She designs visual identities for cultural events, brands and associations such as Rock en Seine in Paris, Les Nuits sonores in Tangier or Quartiers du monde in Rabat and publishes in specialized graphic arts books (Samandal in Lebanon, Slanted in Germany, Dyptique in Morocco and Fractal in Mexico). She also leads writing and drawing workshops with children and visual arts schools in her country and abroad.

Zineb Benjelloun has also had the opportunity to participate in several artist residencies including Dar al mamùn in Marrakech, RAW material company under the direction of Chimurenga in Dakar and the TRAME residency program at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.

She currently lives and works in Casablanca where she develops her writing and exhibition projects, including her first graphic novel to be published in 2021 by ça et là publishing house in Paris and the Le Sirocco publishing house in Morocco.

Born in 1977 in Algiers, where she lives and works, Amel Benmohamed is a visual artist and gallery owner. She has enriched her practice through various workshops and artist residencies. In 2005, she attended a photography workshop with the German photographer Andréas Rost, as well as a printmaking workshop with the painter and printmaker José Hernandez. In the same year, she participated in the fifth edition of the painting workshops in Carthage, Tunisia. In 2009, she took part in the first virtual residency “Pyrénées: Art and Ecology in the 21st Century,” in collaboration with the Spanish artist Lluís Sabadell Artiga. In 2024, she attended a curatorial training led by architect and exhibition curator Mr. Abdelkader Damani, organized by the French Institute of Algiers. That same year, she participated in a masterclass on “Light and Transdisciplinarity” with architect and designer Chafik Gasmi, as part of the Design Biennale, organized in partnership with the Villa Abdellatif.

She has participated in several collective and solo exhibitions in Algiers, Tunisia, Morocco, Spain, Russia, and Switzerland. She has been part of significant events such as the exhibition at the Museum of History in Moscow, as part of the “Algerian Cultural Week in Moscow” (2010), the 4th edition of TIBA9 at the National Museum of Bardo (2016), and the 6th edition of the Nuits Photographiques at the National Library of Rabat (2017). In 2018, she exhibited at the Printemps des Arts at the Moufdi Zakaria Cultural Palace. In 2022, her works were displayed at the Photographic Exhibition Center of Langreo, Spain, as part of the FIAP international exhibitions. More recently, she participated in a collective exhibition at the Baya Gallery at the Cultural Palace in Algiers in March 2024, followed by another exhibition at the Graine d’artiste Gallery in Algiers in January of the same year. Alongside these collective exhibitions, Amel Benmohamed has also presented her works in solo exhibitions, notably at the Mohammed V National Theater in Rabat, Morocco, in 2009, and at the Ezzou’art Gallery in Algiers in 2016.

Her achievements include several awards, including the 3rd prize in the Aïcha Haddad competition for best painting in Algiers in 2005, as well as the Ali Mâachi Encouragement Award in 2007 and 2011. She is featured in the dictionary “Algeria, Visual Arts, a Century of Creation and Creators” by Mansour Abrous, published by Dalimen. In 2019, she published several articles in the online magazine Monokrome Magazine, where she shares her artistic reflections and visual research.

In parallel to her artistic career, Amel Benmohamed has also made a name for herself in cultural management. As a gallery owner at Ezzou’art, at the Bab Ezzouar Shopping and Leisure Center in Algiers, she has orchestrated major events, including exhibitions of painting, sculpture, photography, graphic design, and street art. She has also supervised literary and musical events, such as musico-poetic evenings and workshops for children.

Among her notable achievements are the conference on contemporary art in 2015 with Jaoudet Gassouma, a performance with the graffiti artist Sneak in 2016, and the premiere of the Kami Phénomène music video in 2018. In 2019, she managed the KUTCH event, combining architecture and interior design. In 2021, she organized the GEODESIGN exhibition, blending digital art and geology. In 2022, she collaborated with the Vietnamese Embassy to organize a photographic and culinary exhibition, and in 2023, she organized an exhibition with the Indonesian Embassy, highlighting handicrafts and batik.

As part of these events, she managed public relations, supervised the creation of communication materials, and ensured budget management. A versatile and passionate creator, combining an artistic career with recognized expertise in cultural event management and visual communication, her journey reflects her commitment to promoting art in all its forms and her ability to combine her unique artistic vision with large-scale projects.

Born in 1989 in Algiers, Mouna Bennamani is a multidisciplinary visual artist. Initially graduated from the National School of Tourism and Heritage Preservation in Algiers, she continued her studies in visual arts at the Ecole Supérieure des Métiers des Arts et de la Culture in Aix en Provence. In 2017, she was selected by SciencesPo Paris for the program “Femmes d’Avenir en Méditerranée” where she developed her knowledge on the issues of the relationship of the arts to politics and society as well as the place of women in the latter. In February 2022, she was a finalist in the third edition of the international art competition “Emerging painting invitational prize (EPI)” in Cape Town, South Africa.

Her artistic career is reflected in several exhibitions in Algeria and around the world, such as the Encuentra Internacional del Arte Mediterraneo in Alicante, New York, for the exhibition Waiting for Omar Gattlato at the Wallash Art Gallery, or in South Africa, France and Japan. Her artistic concerns revolve around the study of the body through the prism of gender, its representation, and its interaction with its physical and social space.

During her residency at the Cité internationale des arts, Mouna Bennamani will present the project Retour à l’anormal (Return to the Abnormal) which is a visual reportage of her own medical and social experience, questioning the norm, but also trying to reappropriate her new body, a normality that is still unknown to her.

During this residency, she will develop, in her creation, a new narrative space through the field of immersion, a transversal approach crossing the image, the object and the space. Borderline works, hybrids.

Through this project, the artist seeks to explore the strange connection between her previous works and her malformation. By transforming this ordeal into an artistic experience in a cathartic gesture.