Arraqîm

Abla Ababou Galerie in Rabat presents Arraqîm, a solo exhibition by the Moroccan artist Abdessamad Bouysramne, from 15 October to 28 November 2026. The show is built around writing, with fragments of script that appear, fade and return across the works. Published images show a framed square of ochre and yellow crossed by a short violet line, and a framed diptych of script fragments on paper. A black space set at the centre of the gallery is laid out for visitors to walk around.

Writing, memory and material are the three concerns of Arraqîm. The project goes back to Bouysramne's childhood, when he saw the manuscripts of his father, a fqih or religious scholar in Marrakech. In the exhibition that manuscript inheritance meets present-day languages. Signs come into view in the works, are wiped away and are then reassembled in other configurations.

Arraqîm (الرَّقيم) carries two meanings. It names engraved writing and the material in which that writing is kept, and it echoes raqm, a numeral, which links the title to digital language. Press accounts read the black space at the centre of the gallery as a symbolic nod to the Kaaba and the movement of pilgrimage. They add that neither is represented directly.

Bouysramne was born in Marrakech in 1995 and graduated from the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Casablanca in 2017. His practice spans painting, photography, installation and video, and often draws on calligraphy. He describes his approach as an "archaeology of the present", in which writing becomes an act as well as an archaeological record. In 2021 he held a solo show, Tumulte, at Galerie Artem in Casablanca. In 2024 he showed at Abla Ababou Galerie in the group exhibition Danse des signes. The opening of Arraqîm takes place on Thursday 15 October 2026 at 6.30pm.