Het Vijfde Seizoen

Hamid El Kanbouhi

Winter 2013

Hamid El Kanbouhi lived and worked at The Fifth Season from January until March 2013.

During his stay Hamid El Kanbouhi researched the relationship between patient and institution. Together with patients and clients of the Altrecht mental health he made drawings. He turned his experiences and observations into a performance and installation focussing on the relationship between patient and social worker.

Hamid El Kanbouhi: “I was born in Larache (Morocco). When I was nineteen I moved to The Netherlands and stayed here to develop myself. I am interested in people, communication and social interaction. After a one year language course I started studying at the Social Academy, but soon I decided to apply for art academy. Since then I am an artist.”

I draw and paint people. My work is an open laboratory with many possibilities. Sometimes I make huge installations that represent ordinary situations. For one of my last works I reconstructed the living room of friends of mine in a museum and iinvited them to live in this ‘museum living room’ for a couple of hours per day. For another work I created a Moroccan café in an exhibition space and asked the customers of the actual café to come over, drink tea and play Ludo.”

When Hamid El Kanbouhi came to The Fifth Season he started off with weekly drawing sessions with patients and clients. Drawing was a way to get to know each other.

Gradually individual sessions originated and the conversations became more personal. Hamid transformed his experiences and observations of the last three months into an installation and performance.

Hamid El Kanbougu studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, the Sandberg Institute and the Rijksacademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. His work is exhibited frequently, in The Netherlands and abroad. In the summer of 2013 he participated in the Biennale of Marrakech in Morocco.

www.rijksakademie.nl/ENG/resident/hamid-el-kanbouhi

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