The Art of Reabsorption: Lydia Ourahmane’s Venice Odyssey
There’s something profoundly unsettling about the art world’s grand spectacles, like the Venice Biennale, where masterpieces are shipped across continents only to be dismantled months later. It’s a circus of creation and destruction, a reminder of how art can be both timeless and fleeting. But Lydia Ourahmane, the British-Algerian artist, seems to have cracked the code. Her work doesn’t just exist in Venice—it becomes Venice. And that, in my opinion, is what makes her so fascinating.
Ourahmane’s approach to art is less about extraction and more about reabsorption. She doesn’t parachute into a place, take what she needs, and leave. Instead, she lets the place shape her work. Take her latest project: building a pier for Poveglia, a little-known island in the Venetian lagoon. What many people don’t realize is that Poveglia isn’t just a haunted relic of quarantine and asylums—it’s a sanctuary for locals who fought to keep it from becoming another luxury resort. Ourahmane’s pier isn’t just a functional structure; it’s a symbol of resistance against extraction, a gift to the community. Personally, I think this is where her genius lies: she doesn’t impose her vision; she collaborates with the world around her.
What makes this particularly fascinating is how Ourahmane weaves the mundane into the monumental. Her exhibition at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation includes an old-fashioned coin-operated machine from the church of San Giovanni Crisostomo. Slip a euro in, and the lights illuminate a Bellini altarpiece. It’s a simple mechanism, but it raises a deeper question: how often do we pay to see beauty? Museums, churches, even public spaces—they all gatekeep art behind a price tag. Ourahmane doesn’t just critique this; she replicates it, forcing us to confront our complicity.
One thing that immediately stands out is her ability to connect the personal with the political. Her upbringing in Algeria during the ‘black decade’ of civil war shaped her worldview. Her family’s home became a haven for Christians, a ‘hippy commune’ in the midst of chaos. But what this really suggests is that art, for Ourahmane, is a form of survival. Her work isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about negotiating space, identity, and history. Take her gold dental implant, crafted from a chain sold by a migrant in Oran. It’s a literal merging of her body with the struggles of others, a metaphor that’s both visceral and profound.
From my perspective, Ourahmane’s art is a masterclass in elasticity. She’s as comfortable building piers as she is swapping church machinery or sculpting with decommissioned hotel bedlinen. Her practice isn’t rigid; it’s responsive. Reality determines the work, she says, and I think that’s why her art feels so alive. It’s not confined to galleries or canvases—it’s active in the world, absorbing and reabsorbing the chaos around it.
A detail that I find especially interesting is her use of Ghislaine Maxwell’s curtains in an exhibition about Britishness. These aren’t just curtains; they’re relics of a scandal, objects charged with history. Ourahmane’s point, I believe, is that everything carries an energetic field, a story waiting to be told. But she also reminds us that, at the end of the day, they’re just curtains. It’s a brilliant way to ground the grandiose, to remind us that art doesn’t need to be lofty to be meaningful.
If you take a step back and think about it, Ourahmane’s work is a rebellion against the art world’s extractivist tendencies. She doesn’t take; she gives back. She doesn’t create for the sake of creation; she creates to connect. In a world where art is often commodified, her practice feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s not just about making something new—it’s about making something that belongs.
In the end, what Ourahmane offers isn’t just art—it’s a way of seeing. Her work challenges us to rethink our relationship with the world, to see how deeply interconnected everything is. Personally, I think that’s the highest form of art: not just reflecting reality, but becoming a part of it. And in that sense, Lydia Ourahmane isn’t just an artist—she’s a philosopher, a negotiator, a storyteller. She’s someone who reminds us that art, at its best, is a language we all speak, whether we realize it or not.
