The Voyage, or Three Years at Sea
Part V

Charles H. Scott Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of London-based artist Zineb Sedira. The show is the only solo exhibition in the multi-part series The Voyage, or Three Years at Sea which explores our relationship to the sea.

Born in France to Algerian parents, Sedira explores Algeria’s colonial past and the themes of migration and displacement through sea-related narratives. The Mediterranean Sea plays a significant role in the artist’s work as the site of historical, cultural and contemporary movement between North Africa and Europe. The exhibition at the Charles H. Scott Gallery will consist of two recent multi-disciplinary projects – Transmettre en abyme, 2012 and Lighthouse in the Sea of Time, 2011.

In Lighthouse in the Sea of Time, Sedira turns her attention to lighthouses on the Algerian coastline. Through her exploration of these impressive structures and the objects and archival materials they contain, the artist reveals vestiges of colonial history. She also features interviews with contemporary lighthouse keepers telling their stories and providing insight into their lives on the edge of the sea. In Transmettre en abyme, the artist investigates an immense photographic archive documenting ships arriving and departing from the port of Marseille over a period of sixty years taken by Marcel Baudelaire, a “shipspotter” extraordinaire. The amassed images the archive contains speak of the endless flow of goods and human cargo transported by the vessels Baudelaire depicts.