T Fondaco dei Tedeschi, on occasion of the opening of the Venice Art Biennale, produced their own art exhibition: Unseen Stories is, in fact, more than an exhibition: it is a strong, clear message on important matters. Franco-Moroccan photographer and video artist Leila Alaoui dedicated her life to activism in the matters of identity, cultural diversity, and migration in the Mediterranean area. Her humanitarian work comprises photographic work for important NGOs. During one of these missions, in 2016, she lost her life. At the time, she was in Burkina Faso, under an Amnesty International assignment, to work on women’s rights. Alaoui fell victim of a terrorist attack, when she was wounded to death. After her passing, the Leila Alaoui Foundation was founded to commemorate her work, campaign for her values, and inspire and support artists who work for human dignity. Alaoui’s art, powerful and poetic at once, has been exhibited in several museums and collections, including the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Konsthall in Malmö, the Palácio Nacional in Cascais, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montreal, and, more recently, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Marrakech and the Somerset House in London.
The two installations of Leila Alaoui’s photographs are at the Fondaco’s fourth floor. The first one, Les Marocains, is a choral portrait of her native country in a series of large-scale portraits of its inhabitants – powerful images of Moroccans in traditional garb, highlighted by a black background. Les Marocains was a way, for the artist, to discover her own roots and draw attention to the dignity of a people. The second installation, Crossings, is about the travel sub-Saharan migrants make to reach Morocco and the European coastline. Crossings is a mix of images and videos that trace the migrants’ journey using pieces of real life, like recordings, and re-enacted scenes. An important restitution of the collective trauma that invites us to reflect on the fragility of a travelling community and on the utopian idea of Europe, from an African point of view.