Individuals compared by Mohamed Bourouissa

While it is true that in any Western individualist society, personal identity is based above all on self-fulfilment, one should not underestimate the possibility that this, if taken to extremes, risks weakening the sense of belonging to the community and collective support networks. One example is social media that daily attracts, repels and reflects the constant desire of the have-nots to have and seek more. It is all about how an individual is called upon - and eventually succeeds - to play certain roles in society itself, but above all, it must never be forgotten that each individual is called upon to do so as a single person who must be respected, considered, listened to and loved in its many forms.

Mohamed Bourouissa, an Algerian artist in his early forties, has always succeeded very well in explaining this concept with his works. For the past 20 years, he has been doing precise research into contemporary civilisation and those who live it in its uniqueness and multiplicity. The result is a cross-section in which individualism itself is intertwined with personal ties and the latter with a social fabric that, on the contrary, would end up destroying it, considering also other themes and subjects very dear to him such as the city and migration, staging and conflict.

Bourouissa, who was born in Bilda but has a home and studio in Gennevilliers, "loves to explore latent hostilities, power relations and the mechanisms of representation and self-representation that define marginalised or underrepresented communities," explained Francesco Zanot, curator of the new exhibition dedicated to him until 28 September at the MAST in Bologna, the international and philanthropic cultural institution based on Technology, Art and Innovation, established in Bologna in 2013 thanks to the intuition and skill of Isabella Seràgnoli and her foundation.

The title, 'Communautés', reminds us that the very concept of individual identity 'is a social construction', as Charles Taylor said, and that therefore the individual does not develop his or her identity in isolation, but within a precise social and cultural context. People, therefore, define who they are on the basis of their personal preferences, but above all in relation to the values, traditions, expectations, practices and models of life considered important or necessary by society.

Those that Bourouissa documents in the series "Horse Day" (2013-2019), taken in a Philadelphia suburb, deconstruct the imaginary of the cowboy by juxtaposing the practice of dressing and beautifying horses with that of modifying cars and pick-up trucks. In "Périphérique" (2005-2008), on the other hand - the series produced after the riots in the French banlieues - it is the inhabitants of those places where there are often situations of tension and danger, photos that in mixing the codes of the pictorial tradition with those of documentary photography they create a unicum of bodies touching and gazes intertwining, just like those of people caught stealing something in a supermarket or a shop in "Shopfilters" (2014), a way for the artist to denounce the consumerist misery of society. On the other hand, "Hands" (2025) is his most recent project, presented exclusively at the MAST Foundation, reprinted on Plexiglas and set against the backdrop of a metal grid. Works "that look at themselves and concern us", Zanot points out, through the eyes and mediation of those who populate them.