CV
Born in Algiers. Lives and works in Algiers.
Graduated from Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Algiers.
2022
ABDELAKDER, MUCEM, Marseille
HYPERNUIT, CAPC Bordeaux / FRAC MECA, Bordeaux
ALGER, AUTOPORTRAIT(S) (solo show), Les Ateliers Sauvages, Algiers
2021
WAITING FOR OMAR GATLATO, FRICHE de la Belle de Mai, Marseille
Quelque part entre les silences et les parlers, Centre d’Art de Malakoff, Paris
Politics at Play, Play at Politics, Kunstfort, Netherland
2020
Lahore Biennale 02 , Pakistan
Notre monde brûle, Palais de Tokyo , Paris
Rue d’Alger, MANIFESTA 13 , Marseille
2019
Colonial Wounds / Postcolonial Repair , Duke Hall Gallery, JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY
WAITING FOR OMAR GATLATO, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York
2018
Meditations on Place: Four Perspectives; Four African Cities, Cleveland Museum of Art
Ten Years of Production Programme , Sharjah Art Foundation
LAGOS PHOTO FESTIVAL, Lagos
2017
Anarchéologies, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Suspended Territories, Marta Herford Museum, Germany
2016
do it IN ARABIC, Sharjah Art Spaces
digging deep, crossing far, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin
BIENAL DE LA IMAGEN EN MOVIMIENTO, Buenos Aires
2015
BRUGGES Triennial 2015
What Is Home, Pump House Gallery, London
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York
2014
Alger/Marseilles, Allers et retours, MUCEM, Museum for European and Mediterranean Civilizations, Marseilles
Art Dubai Projects 2014, Dubai (catalogue)
DAK’ART Biennale 2014, Dakar (catalogue)
INTERVENING SPACE: From The Intimate To The World, The Mosaic Rooms, London (catalogue)
SUMMER EXHIBITION, Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces
HERE AND ELSEWHERE, The New Museum, New York (catalogue)
FOLKESTONE Triennial 2014, (UK) (catalogue)
The Ultimate Capital is the Sun, nGbk, Berlin (catalogue)
TRAVAIL d’ARCHIVES, FauxMouvement Centre d’Art Contemporain, Metz, France
PROPOSALS ON MONUMENTALITY, Green Art Gallery, Dubaï
2013
BECOMING INDEPENDENT, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
SHARJAH BIENNIAL 11 : Re-emerge : Towards a New Cultural Cartography (catalogue)
LE PONT, Museum of Contemporary Art of Marseilles
Damascus Visual Arts Festival, Istanbul
aria (artist residency in algiers) special project at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London
NATIVE NOSTALGIA, Museum of African Design, Johannesburg
UN ÉCORCHÉ, art-cade, galerie des grands bains douches de la Plaine (solo show)
2012
Synchronicity II, Tiwani Contemporary, London
Chkoun Ahna, National Museum of Carthage, Tunisia
2011
New Cartographies: Algeria-France-UK, Cornerhouse, GB.
Synchronicity I, Baudoin Lebon Gallery, Paris, France
2010
L’attente, Museum of Modern Art of Algiers
2009
AFRICAINES, Exhibition Center of Algiers (catalogue)
2008
PONTEVEDRA Biennale, Spain, (catalogue)
“Iconoclastes, les territoires de l’esprit”, curated by Kader Attia, Gallery Anne De Villepoix, Paris.
2006
MEMORIAL of the National Museum of Civil Protection, Algiers. (first public commission)
2005
EXTRA MUROS Chapter 1, Installation at Bastion 23 Art Center, Algiers.(solo show)
Bio
Amina Menia’s work questions the relation to architectural and historical spaces, and challenges conventional notions around the exhibition space. Her artworks are a crossovers of sculptures and installations that trigger an interaction of viewers and passersby with socio-spatial configurations.
Extra-Muros (2005-ongoing) is a series of site specific installations all over Algiers. An invitation to revisit this city and thus its re-appropriation. It encountered so many obstacles that most of its chapters remain unrealised. Therefore, it intersects directly with its problematic of denouncing confiscated spaces, confiscated memory and lack of freedom.
For Chrysanthemums (2009-2011), she proposed a photographic installation in frontal relation with the viewer and documenting useless monuments charged with history. Enclosed (2012-ongoing) is a documentary-based installation that shows how the Algerian artist M’hamed Issiakhem circumvented his commission to “hide” the former Monument to the Dead of Algiers. He encased it in a temporary cement coffering. She spent a long-term residency in the city of Marseilles, working on the common architectural heritage of Algiers and Marseilles through the inspiring figure of the architect Fernand Pouillon.
Amina has showed her work nationally and internationally, including Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Cleveland Museum of Art (USA), the Royal Hibernian Academy (Dublin), the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of African Design (Johannesburg), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseilles. She participated to the 11th Sharjah Biennial (UAE), the Dakar Biennial 2014 (Senegal) as well as Folkestone Triennial 2014 (UK,) BRUGGES Triennial 2015 and MANIFESTA 2020.
Her work in included in numerous public collections.
Residencies
Les Ateliers Sauvages
AGAM (Agence d’Urbanisme de l’Agglomération Marseillaise), Marseille
Espace Culturel Fernand Pouillon, Marseille
Delfina Foundation, London, UK
Aftis, Algeria
Visiting Arts, London, UK
Live readings/ Performances
2016
Landowski, Issiakhem and I, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin
2014
Landowski, Issiakhem and I, MUCEM (Museum for European and Mediterranean Civilizations, Marseilles)
Landowski, Issiakhem and I, Centre Georges Pompidou-Metz
2012
Chkoun Ahna, National Museum of Carthage, Tunisia
Book Projects
2014
ENCLOSED. Landowski, Issiakhem and I
UnDélaissé. To reminisce the future by sharing bread and stories. For Folkestone Triennial
Public Commissions
2006
Memorial of The National Museum of Civil Protection, Algiers
Grants
2016
Production grant from Sharjah Art Foundation
Collections
Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Sharjah
CNAP, Centre national des arts plastiques
Frac Centre-Val de Loire, France
MATHAF, Arab Museum Of Modern Art
Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA
Talks and lectures
2022
In Conversation Amina Menia & Wassyla Tamzali for the exhibition “Alger, Autoportrait(s) “
Palimpsest Monuments, for the conference “Contested Histories, Shared Futures”, European Alliance of Academies
2021
The March Meeting, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah
2020
Mémoires algériennes : L’art d’en parler, pour l’exposition “Rue d’Alger”, Manifesta 13
Algiers, theater of conflict and desire, Studio X Amman and Sijal Institute, in collaboration with Columbia Univ. NY
2019
Artist talk: Colonial Wounds / Postcolonial Repair, James Madison University
2018
Circles and Cycles: Accumulating as a Practice, Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art
2017
Artist talk : Regional Conference of the Unesco, Tunis
2014
The Sculpture Question, Folkestone Triennial 2014
Archives au présent, Centre Pompidou-Metz
2013
Amina Menia and Dr Anthony Downey in conversation at INIVA – Institute of International Visual Arts, Rivington Place, London
2012
Panel discussion and video screening: Exploring Paradigms, MUSAC (Leon) and Casa Arabe (Madrid)
Artist talk : Chkoun Ahna, National Museum of Carthage, Tunisia
2011
New Cartographies: Algeria-France-UK : The State and Stakes of Contemporary Art in Algeria, Cornerhouse, GB.
The March Meeting, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah
2010
Talk around L’attente, Museum of Modern Art of Algiers
2009
Artist talk : Delfina Foundation
2008
30th Biennale de Pontevedra : « Sin Fronteras » symposium
Invited Artist to International Symposium of the Tunisian Association of Aesthetics : Art practices and aesthetics of the environment.