Meriem Bennani
Bouchra Clock, 2023
Edition of 100 + 10AP
12 in diameter (30.5 cm)

Meriem Bennani’s 2017 film, Ghariba, an Arabic word meaning stranger or something strange, opens with a shot of the face of a woman, Bouchra, in a spinning clock. For her edition at the Ren, Bennani has brought this clock to life. The video, which can be seen here: goodman-gallery.art/meriem-bennani, is a portrait of women in Bennani’s family, the main cast members from her personal childhood mythology. With a distance provided by a camera, Bennani and the women discuss middle-age romance and sexuality, including the titular Bouchra sharing her first experience on Tinder.

Bennani had a solo exhibition at the Ren in 2022. The exhibition debuted Life on the Caps, the final chapter in her film trilogy of the same name, set in a supernatural, dystopian future surrounding a fictional island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This new work was a result of the artist’s research and reflections on the histories of island societies, biotechnology, and vernacular music. Layering live-action footage and computer-generated animation, Bennani adapts editing techniques that evoke documentary film, science-fiction, phone footage, music videos, and reality TV.