Art Taaalkssss: Roman Selim Khereddine

Through his films, installations, drawings and prints, artist Roman Selim Khereddine investigates how the relationships between humans and other animals reflect, legitimate and reinforce societal dynamics of power between different individuals. The artist has investigated such matters as dog-rearing traditions in Morocco, the obedience duties of police dogs, the biased media coverage of zoos in Palestine, and the troubled history of the Knie family circus. Through these projects, he reveals how the imaginaries, desires, affects, and logics of control that determine the ways people relate to one another and to different animals rely on social and political constructions more than on natural laws.

In connection to his contribution to the fall symposium The Monster Is Us: Violence, Nonviolence, and the Authoritarian Turn at Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW (26 – 27 November 2024), Khereddine will pursue his reflection on animal and human politics. Departing from Bite the Hand, his solo show at Helmhaus in Zurich in spring 2024, he will focus on his recent exhibition PARTNER at *ALTEFABRIK in October 2024, in which he critically re-visited two important sites of his childhood, the circus and the zoo.

Roman Selim Khereddine is a visual artist based in Zurich. For his recent projects, he had a police officer and his dog perform obedience exercises on camera or documented Moroccan workers dismantling the tent of Switzerland’s biggest circus. Recent solo exhibitions include PARTNER, *ALTEFABRIK, Rapperswil-Jona; Beiss die Hand, Helmhaus, Zurich; Big House Narrow Grave, Sentiment, Zurich; Can’t Have It All, Binz39, Zurich; Hard-Won Images, Espace 3353, Carouge; and Hard-Won Images 2, Tunnel Tunnel, Lausanne. Khereddine holds Master’s degrees in History and Fine Arts.