Lydia Ourahmane's Intimate Photographs at Galerie Chantal Crousel

Lydia Ourahmane's exhibition at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris presents a series of contact-sheet-style photographs that were never intended for public display. The images, pressed between glass, offer a porous and open view of her life and work. They include traces of past projects, both realized and unrealized, such as a film about a boy who stole her dog (abandoned after his death), a car on fire in the desert, and an elaborate effort to secure French nationality for her father. A standout image is a concrete airplane built by a man who died while finishing its wings. The photographs span geographies in Algeria: El Ayaïda, Oran, Algiers, and Tassili N'Ajjer. The exhibition also features soil smuggled from Oran eight years ago, now walked upon in the gallery. Ourahmane's work often explores smuggling as a theme, making visible what has been obscured. The show runs at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris.