Rapproche, A Photographic Journey Of Melika Shafahi

About

Melika Shafahi is the first Iranian artist to join the Résidences Méditerranée scheme . Her work at the Friche la Belle de Mai has been nourished by the many users of the site, the teenagers. Having become an integral part of the identity of the site, these heterogeneous groups of young people occupy as much the spaces that are dedicated to them, playground, dance floor, etc., as the many one-eyed places when the previous ones become too public for their activities.

They are also the waste of today, and their attendance of the place is also worth for what it shelters. Without having to be the spectators of the projects that are being made here, it is enough for them to know that it is there, that here artists work, concerts howl, stories are said on stage and works expose themselves, creating a active alchemy that obviously escapes the wishes of the cultural operator. The Wasteland in the background all a programmatic development has become their playground and it suits them.

Melika Shafahi, in a slow work of approach and by her stagings, operates here a first reversal of this inventory, using her practice as a new process of inclusion where the tribes of teenagers also become cultural actors.