Les Graines Noires by Moroccan artist M’barek Bouhchichi, curated by Omar Berrada and Beya Othmani, concluded on 22 November 2025 at the Selma Feriani Gallery in Tunis. The exhibition offered a powerful and poetic inquiry into Blackness, migration, loss and the layered experiences of communities shaped by trans-Saharan histories.
The show opened with a retelling of the famous local legend of Boussaadia, a man from the Sahel whose daughter Saadia was kidnapped and sold into slavery. His long, desperate search for her led him to Tunis, where his grief eventually became intertwined with Stambeli, a healing musical tradition. Yet Saadia herself often vanished from the narrative—reduced to a symbol, rather than a voice.
Bouhchichi restored her presence in Saadia (2025), where two mirrored female forms—one sculpted in glossy black Aziza marble from Tunisia and the other in veined white Carrara—stood in quiet dialogue. Their differences in tone, texture and weight suggested the complex states of visibility and erasure that shape Black femininity in North African memory.
Across the gallery, three charred wooden sculptures titled Boussaadia (2025) reopened the story from another angle. Each piece, hollowed and scarred, resembled a guembri, the traditional Stambeli instrument. Stripped of strings, these ghostly forms evoked a sense of futility and longing, reminding viewers how migration and loss can hollow the human spirit.
Themes of ritual and ancestral practice resurfaced in I Am Here (2025), a precarious column of ceramic jars inspired by traditions from the Zarzis region, where dancers from Black communities balance vessels atop their heads. Rather than placing them on a body, Bouhchichi stacked them unsteadily—a gesture of fragility. Etched across each jar were verses from M’barek Toumi’s poem الحرّاقة (The Burners / Clandestine Migrants), linking ritual memory to the ongoing tragedies of displacement.
Another column rose in Palm-Witness (2025), made of twelve half-spheres of charred wood. At first glance, they appeared to speak of death and devastation, but Bouhchichi intentionally used the Japanese Shou Sugi Ban technique, in which fire strengthens wood instead of destroying it. This inversion underscored a central truth: resilience is not a natural state, but one forged through hardship.
Branches and tree imagery continued in Stick Charts 1 and 2 (2025)—delicate brass casts that intersected in tangled formations, referencing traditional navigation tools used across oceans and deserts. Their fragile configurations reflected the uncertainties and dangers faced by those who crossed the Sahara in search of a new life.
At the center of the space stood Vegetal Man (2025), three towering brass agave stalks. The agave plant blooms only once before dying, scattering its seeds as an act of renewal. Bouhchichi used this metaphor to speak to communal survival, transformation and sacrifice.
Behind the sculpture hung Seedings (2025), a series of ten intricate drawings on handmade paper composed of tree bark and recycled fibers. Each work depicted forms of pre-colonial West African currency, rendered through thousands of tiny seed-like marks. Collectively, they signaled unity and memory while pushing back against any attempt to reduce Black identity to a single narrative.
The exhibition concluded with two sculptural series—Agave Seeds (2025) and Black Seeds (2025)—crafted from copper, thuya wood, charred wood, and nickel silver. Through these shimmering, varied forms, Bouhchichi emphasized transformation and multiplicity. The seeds served as a final reminder that Blackness, migration, and identity are not fixed categories, but living, evolving constellations of experience.
Les Graines Noires closed on 22 November 2025, leaving visitors with a lasting meditation on movement, memory and the strength that emerges from fragmentation.
