As Long As I Can Hold My Breath
By Mohamed Thara
“As Long As I Can Hold My Breath” is an experimental video that tells the sinking of a migrant boat in the middle of the Mediterranean with an audiovisual recontextualization of archives of the sinking. The video shows swallows leaving Europe in autumn to winter in Africa. It is haunted by the tragedy of Lampedusa on October 3, 2013, off Libya, at the borders of Europe. A horror that turned into a nightmare when the 400 corpses came to the surface.
About the Artist
Mohamed Thara
Mohamed Thara was born in 1972 in Fez, Morocco. He lives and works between Bordeaux, and Paris. As a multidisciplinary artist, he holds a National Diploma (DNSEP) in Visual Arts a Master’s degree from the Ecole supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux in France. After having trained in Paris in the different films and photography technics, first, at INA SUP (Audiovisual National Institute) and then at Arscipro (Professional Film School). Mohamed Thara is a Doctor in Aesthetics and Art Theory (Ph.D.) from Bordeaux-Montaigne University in France. Painter, photographer, video artist and multi-talented performer, he tries to extend the boundaries of painting with a very personal pictorial work that questions the ambiguity of the representation. His performances question the sense of "living together" and give his images the capacity to make us analyze the world we live in. Through his videos oscillating between tension and balance, giving birth and generating death, Mohamed questions the imminence of death to let us comprehend about life’s fragility. His photographic work contains a promise of ritual writing, a thought rightly thrown into the world, a global and critical project about society through the moving image that raises many questions: history, memory, evil, identity, pain, chaos... Mohamed Thara has participated in numerous exhibitions around the world: The “Soho International Art Contest” in New York, USA (1999), the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Sharajah, United Emirates Arab (1995), the collective Grand Palais “Jeune Peinture” in Paris, France (1999), the “Mutation” at the Museum -(CAPC)- of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux (2001), France and also at the ZKM, Art and Media Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany (2017), at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio Janeiro, Brazil (2017), at the Kochi Musiris Biennale, in Kerala India (2017), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), at Rencontres de Bamako - African Biennale of Photography, Mali (2019), at the 13th Havana Biennale, Cuba (2019), at the 14th Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar, Senegal (2020) and many other artistic events. Several private collectors from France, Morroco and abroad have acquired his work. His films have won numerous awards around the world.