Nicole Zaaroura : Member in Profile

Tender as an unknown space / tender as a rawness / tender as a warning / tender as grief and a longing / and as a meaning that does not quite settle…

My practice can be described as a series of site responsive ‘choreographies’ that explore the physical, emotional and peripheral spaces that we simultaneously inhabit and resist. Using the body, space and time, I use photography, moving image and performance to camera, exploring the use of everyday gesture and encounter, the lens acting as my witness. These more intimate processes often translate into rituals and manifest into new intimate geographies. I find ‘movement’ a major inspiration and find myself exploring various choreographers, most recently the work of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, connecting ritual with repetition. I am attracted to works that ‘hold a meaning that does not quite settle’, and whilst exploring ‘time’ under the amazing mentorship of artist Marylin Arsem, during the Venice International Performance Festival in 2017, my practice shifted and continues under this, to unravel, fold and turn…

Often situating my practice in locations that acts as catalysts, site specific residencies, architecture, urban and semi urban landscapes, the works are created within a variety of time frames and the exploration of how to document/witness them has recently become more crucial to me.

Over the past 10 years, I have been exhibited internationally in touring film festivals, gallery, non-gallery and residency spaces, and in private and public spaces, across the UK, Canada, Finland, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Brazil. My performance ‘A Film in My Purse…’ was a performative series of projections that took place across Bosnia, Albania and Greece.

‘A Film in my Purse…’ blog and my blog ‘Stills for a Game’ are ongoing reflective works that sits alongside my practice as performative text, image and another experimental space.

I currently have a moving image work that is being toured within the International Festival of Minimal Urban Performance which has just been shown in Madrid. Under my new research title ‘Tender_ Spaces’, I will be spending a month in Italy developing ideas around inner spaces and porous borders. I also plan to continue with my refugee photography project ‘Site Line’, a three-year mentoring project with refugees and asylum seekers in Hastings, later this year.

Image Gallery