Initiated by Tunisian artist, architect and scenographer Chedly Atallah, whose practice explores geopolitical changes in the Arab world through history, architecture and mythological narratives, Matar, Matar, Matar is an artistic investigation into the time of representation and memory, with water as a metaphor for remembrance.
Published following the eponymous exhibition at La Maréchalerie, Versailles, in 2023.
Born in 1991 in Tunis, Chedly Atallah is an artist, architect, and scenographer who lives and works between Paris and Tunis. After studying architecture in Tunis and later in Paris, he joined the Beaux-Arts de Paris where he established a strong connection with the sculptor Emmanuel Saulnier. They collaborated on various projects, including the edition Alep, the book Beyrouth IN-SITU (published by Beaux-Arts), and the Almanach Les Ides de Mars.
His practice explores the geopolitical changes in the Arab world post-revolution. Through a combination of video, installations, and sculptures, he questions the cohabitation of people with their images, drawing inspiration from the current events of wars and uprisings in Libya, Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon. In his image-making process, he addresses two essential concepts derived from the memories of his deceased grandfather: those of duplication and blindness. Through historical, architectural, religious, and political layers, he creates fragments of visual and iconographic memories that trace migration through the stories of forms, reality, and the imagined.
His work has been exhibited in France (Le Cent Quatre, Beaux-Arts de Paris, La Maréchalerie, Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, etc.), as well as in Italy, Colombia, England, the Czech Republic, and Tunisia. In 2020-21, during his residency at Villa Belleville, he was a laureate of the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation x Cité Internationale des Arts de Paris program and the Fondation de France prize. In 2022, he was awarded the Mondes Nouveaux program with the project Matar, Matar, Matar.
