Foreign Office

Produced within the framework of the SAM Art Prize (Sam Art Projects, Paris), and first premiered earlier this year at Palais de Tokyo, Khalili’s solo show, Foreign Office, combines the homonymous digital film , a series of photographs and a silkscreen print entitled The Archipelago.

Made in Algiers, this new body of works responds to the reflection developed by the artist for a decade about the power of the spoken word, linguistic performativity and self-representation, as poetical and political gestures that embody forms of resistance. Foreign Office focuses on the period during which Algiers - between 1962 and 1972– became the "mecca of revolutionaries", hosting representations of many liberation movements from Africa, Asia and the Americas, such as Eldridge Cleaverʼs International Section of the Black Panther Party, Mandelaʼs ANC, or the PAlGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) founded by Amilcar Cabral.

Taking as a starting point this forgotten past of post-independent Algeria, Foreign Office invites to reflect on history and its transmission, as well as on utopia as a narrative shaped by poetry.