Ferhat Bouda, Film and Media Arts, 2020
*1976 in Algeria, lives in Frankfurt a. M.
Ferhat Bouda was born in Algeria (Kabylia) in 1976 and has been living in Frankfurt am Main as a freelance photographer since 2005. The Kabyle are members of different Berber tribes with a common language. His upbringing in the mountain region brought him into contact with the Berber cultural movement at an early age. As an adolescent, he campaigned for the recognition of his mother tongue (Kabylian). As an adult, he finally left his country with the aim of studying film in France “so that my grandmother can one day see films in her own language”. However, after acquiring a photo camera by chance, he developed an enthusiasm for documentary photography and started studying photography in Paris.
Back in his native country, he devoted himself to a long-planned photographic project on the life of the Berber and nomadic peoples and travelled to all countries in North Africa and the Sahel. What moved him are the people and the diversity of cultures in which these peoples live. Bouda’s work has been exhibited at the Visa pour L’Image photo festival in Perpignan (France) and at the SCAM gallery in Paris, among others. He is a scholarship holder of the French Boulat Prize and the Hessian Cultural Foundation. As a member of the VU’ agency in Paris, his works are published in numerous magazines and newspapers.
Ellen Auerbach Fellowship
Article & Space
What Matters
Work Presentation 2022
“What Matters” was the question andtatement of 2022 presentation of works by the JUNGE AKADEMIE, the interdisciplinary and international artist-in-residence programme of the Akademie der Künste. In an exhibition and a multifaceted programme including screenings, concerts and readings, 29 fellows from all of the Akademie’s art sections presented sound and video installations, photographs, sculptures, paintings and performances they developed during their studio residencies in the Hansaviertel in Berlin and at Villa Serpentara in Olevano, Italy.
“What Matters” is not to be understood as the title of a thematic exhibition but rather indicates the diversity of questions, perspectives and realities that are interlaced in an artist residency, while emphasising their urgency. The exhibition focused on the artists’ individual approaches that encompass a broad spectrum of themes: from questions about the transformation of societies and their expression in relation to the urban space and landscape, to interrelations between the individual and social systems such as state, religion and the economy, to reflections on body images and conceptions of history, personal archives and the intertwining of nature, technology and culture.
What matters is artistic testimony, poetic resistance and the imagining of sustainable futures in the face of global tipping points – whether climatic or political in nature. Two years into the pandemic and the associated restrictions, “What Matters” was the most comprehensive presentation of works to date by the JUNGE AKADEMIE.
To quote one of the fellows: “What matters? Make them see…”
La Poussière de Mao (2021)
Photographs
In his pictures from the Kanem region in Chad, photographer Ferhat Bouda reports on the current conditions of the people living there, who are suffering increasingly due to climate change. The problems are manifold: more frequent droughts, dessert encroachment, difficulties in agricultural cultivation and difficult access to water. The people are facing these new challenges in many different ways. In order to bear witness to the effects of climate change on world hunger, the pictures were created as part of the “Dust – Climate Change” project in collaboration with French aid organisation “Action contre la Faim”.
The solo exhibition “Ferhat Bouda. Photographs and Diaries” at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt in March-May 2022 was supported by the Ellen-Auerbach-Scholarship of JUNGE AKADEMIE.
