Sabrina Amrani is pleased to present "There is no religion in the woods" an analysis of the works of Nicène Kossentini presented in her third solo show at the gallery, "Memorising".

"Memorising" is composed of a series of works based on texts by Arab philosophers, thinkers and poets, such as Ibn Khaldun or Khalil Gibran among others. Each of the calligraphic texts of the works disappear in an exercise of miniature writing that makes reading complex and the meaning impossible: works in which famous quotes are intertwined, poems are superimposed or texts are dissolved in water, creating an abstract landscape .

The starting point of this difficult-to-access landscape is the artist's reflection on the loss of meaning of words, and therefore of acquired knowledge: Kossentini feels like everything she had learned about history, grammar and even her native language, the Arabic, had no relation to the present. She finds that her knowledge, and therefore that of the rest of civilization, is disconnected from reality as a result of her forgetfulness.

Taking as a medium her mother tongue, which is often inaccessible to her, she questions at a universal level not only the liquid aspect of culture and tradition, but also the concepts of identity, civilization and history, and the crises derived from the disconnection.

How does a civilization survive and evolve when tangible knowledge becomes unintelligible?

To avoid this disconnection between what has been learned and the present time, Kossentini focuses more on the container than its content, on the form rather than on the meaning, and thus invites to awaken the capacity of the viewer to delve into the surface of the work, to discover the reason for the superposition of some words, the erasure of others and to understand the true meaning behind the landscape.

For Kossentini, the gesture of writing is assimilated to the construction of a thought, a time that is extended, a diluted content. The artist poses a contemporary and universal problem: the loss of the meaning of words, and likewise the loss of knowledge.

Through writing and expanding words, Kossentini, throughout the exhibition, makes references to questions raised by the historian Ibn Khaldun in the fourteenth century, in his great work th Muqqadima. Considered the founder of political sociology, he wonders what are the causes of historical and social evolutions. The main interest in her work is the identification of the psychological, economic, social and environmental factors that affect historical events and history and that allow us to understand the process of human civilization, in the same way that the artist questions on social evolution, memory loss and the search for identity through history, grammar or poetry lessons.

The reason why Kossentini rescues this Universal History book and extracts some fragments is because she considers that we must reinvent history, and gain awareness that we are about to lose it and with it, our identity. Therefore, we have to do everything possible to catch what is about to disappear and keep it alive in time.

In the words of the historian of Al-Andalus "Language is one of the facets of thought". In Kossentini's works, it is the gesture that makes his way of reinventing history: as if they were eternal, through her pieces she tries to capture what is fleeing, changing. It is the way in which she expresses the state of disappearance of these texts and stories, and tries to retain them: the excerpts of the history lessons repeated on paper and diluted in water as a symbol of the process of disappearance in which they are found.

As part of the concept of loss and disappearance that is the common thread of the show, the artist brings poets such as Abu Nuwâs, Jamil Buthayna, Al-Khansā or Al-Ma’arri, among others. She selects seven of the poets who are closest to her and present the characteristic common to Arabic poetry: in addition to not having a title, they all begin their poems with a phrase that refers to the ruins, the disappearance of the beloved, the idea. of loss, but with the sense and impulse to recover and rebuild.

Talking about women and love in poetry is a general rule. However, the figure of women in the work of Nicène Kossentini, as it happens throughout the History of Art, is a symbol of the representation of society and civilization. Thus, when a society is suffering an identity crisis, it has been involved in conflicts, it has a change in its maximum figure of power, it must rebuild and reinvent itself. After ending in ruins, you must continue to build your story from events.

Kossentini throughout the entire exhibition leads us to reflect on the concept of identity as individuals and as a civilization, through the idea of forgetting and memory. In the artist's words, things are born and later, they disappear. Everything is fugitive and at the same time invisible. Contemplation and concentration to maintain what is about to be lost lead to forgetting the content to focus on contemplation. With writing, the pieces recall texts that make their lives go on.

Through phrases such as "Injustice and oppression lead to the collapse of civilizations", "Language is one of the two sides of thought" by Ibn Khaldoun or "Our true reality is silent" by Khalil Gilbran, the artist shows that, not only lengthens the life of words but also builds an abstract landscape, where knowledge is the natural element of civilization.

"Memorising" is, in addition to a work on the idea of ​​memory and identity, a reflection of the artist's interest in the protagonism of the continent vis-à-vis content (form versus meaning), in a society where contemplation of the visual is distracting of the importance of meaning.

The artist says that one day, diving into the family photo archive, she came across an image of her paternal grandfather, in the 1930s, where he was seen at school with his classmates and teachers, dressed in traditional Arab clothing. Although it is an old photo, which has lost color, and certain details, the artist feels a close relationship with her initial concern: "While I was studying, there came a time when I became aware of a break. All my learning, literary heritage and poetic that had been transmitted to me, it seemed to have no relation to my present ”. Probably, she thinks, her grandfather also learned subjects and knowledge, which later when she grew up, had no connection whatsoever with her present.

She reflects on the initial moment of learning: when he begins to read, when he begins to write, to sing ... In this process, the subjects and their content are as important as the continent, the place where that knowledge is framed and carried out: the school and its desks. The desk as an object that gives you space to stop, stop time and dedicate yourself to understanding, to understand culture, civilization and society. Time to learn about the concept of identity and belonging. Time for the knowledge and training of the individual who acts in the present, and will be an actor in the future.