Dalila Dalléas Bouzar: Vaisseau Infini

Winner of the SAM Prize in 2021, artist Dalila Dalléas Bouzar presents “Vaisseau infini,” a monumental embroidery created in Tlemcen with Algerian embroiderers, both professionals and amateurs. At the Palais de Tokyo, the “Vaisseau infini” unfolds in the form of a large tent that welcomes the public and numerous events. The embroidery interprets a vast collection of drawings made by the artist at the site of Tassili N’Ajjer, a rocky plateau in the Sahara Desert in the south of Algeria where, for several millennia, people have depicted their history and environment in the open air on stone walls, making Tassili a unique testament to human history, its relationship with nature and animals, the evolution of its behaviors, and its representations of gender and sexuality.

Dalila Bouzar sees in these drawings the representation of a utopia: the distant past from which they originate constitutes for her a continuum that transports us to an infinite future, beyond the stories of domination that make up the recent history of Algeria.

A meditative, dreamlike, intimate, and ritualized space, the tent of the “Vaisseau infini,” conducive to attention and listening, welcomes the public and invites them to listen to the Vintage Arab podcasts designed and produced by Hajer Ben Boubaker, as well as a sound creation by Paloma Colombe. Throughout the autumn, moments of speech and shared narratives are organized by philosophers, artists, historians, and others.