Zoulikha Bouabdellah is the daughter of Hassen Bouabdellah, a film director and Algerian writer, and Malika Dorbani, ex-head of the Algiers Fine Art Museum. Following her birth in Moscow in 1977, Zoulikha Bouabdellah grew up in the Algerian capital until the age of 16. In 1993, while the civil war was underway, her family chose to leaving Algeria and settle in France. Since her graduation from the Ecole nationale supérieure d'arts de Cergy-Pontoise in 2002, Zoulikha Bouabdellah has been an actor in the Contemporary Art world. Her works toy with cultural duality and imbalances, as well as cultural fusion and the ability to transcend borders. Zoulikha Bouabdellah has won several prizes: Le Meurice for Contemporary Art Prize (Paris, France), Abraaj Capital Prize (Dubaï, UAE), Algerian Prize for young Algerian creation and Villa Médicis Hors les Murs (AFAA - Cape Town, South Africa). She has been shown all over the world in fairs and institutions such as the Venice Biennial, Art Dubai, FIAC, Art Brussels, Aichi Triennial, Bamako Biennial, Mead Art Museum, Centre Pompidou, MoCADA, Brooklyn Museum, etc. She has also done several residencies, most recently at the Art School Palestine in Ramallah, but also at Amherst College in the Massachussetts and in Cape Town, South Africa.
Kelly Stone