Une archéologie du sensible

Galerie Noir sur Blanc in Marrakech presents Une archéologie du sensible, a solo exhibition by the Tunisian artist Meriem Bouderbala. It runs from 22 September to 11 October 2026. The show gathers mixed-media pieces, ceramics and works made on veil. Sanaa El Younsi is the curator. The opening was held on Tuesday 22 September at 6pm.

Press images of the exhibition give a sense of its range. One work is a sheet pierced by burn holes, carrying line drawings of faces and figures beside a painted tree in flower. Another is a ceramic piece in which a glazed hand, skulls and figures sit on a textured painted ground. A third, painted on fabric against an orange ground, shows figures in a classical manner alongside a dog-headed figure. No titles or dates for these works have been published.

Local press frames the show around the body in fragments, veiled figures and Mediterranean imaginaries, and around layers of memory where myth meets material. Bouderbala has shown her work since the mid-1980s. Much of it takes a critical look at the fantasies Orientalism projected onto the 'Oriental woman', and at women's condition in the Arab world. She paints on canvas, paper, glass and fabric, and has also turned to photographic self-portraits. In 2012 the Institut du monde arabe in Paris included her photographic series Tératogénèse in the group exhibition Le corps découvert.

Born in Tunis in 1960, Bouderbala studied engraving and painting at the École des Beaux-Arts d'Aix-en-Provence. She then joined the engraving department of the Chelsea School of Art in London. She lives and works in Paris and Tunis, and France named her a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2010. The gallery is on the first floor of the Adam Plaza building, 48 rue de Yougoslavie, in Guéliz. A press listing for the gallery's previous show, in summer 2026, gave free entry and hours from Monday to Saturday. Hours for this show have not been published.