LYNA BEGGAH & ALESSANDRO FERRARI

We are Lyna Beggah (Lausanne, 1999) and Alessandro Ferrari (Milano, 1999). We began collaborating spontaneously in 2022 and now work as a duo.

Our artistic work is based on decolonial, socio-political, historical and identity research, which takes as its starting point our family and personal histories. We're particularly interested in our families' origins, as we come from two immigrant families in Switzerland, Lyna from Jijel in Algeria and Alessandro from Milano in Italy. Using the question “How to live within ruins?”, taken from the book Program of Absolute Disorder by Françoise Vergès, we are exploring and focusing our current research on the theme of the “myth of modernity”.

We obtained our bachelor's degree at édhéa (Sierre) in 2022 and did an artistic residency at la Ferme-Asile (Sion) in 2023.

We are currently finishing our master's degree in Contemporary Art’s Practice at the HKB in Bern. Alongside our studies, we have been running since 2021 an off-space called espace bigbang based in Sierre.

Instagram: @lynabgh & @alessandro.ferrari

Artist Statement

Naar Fi Galbi [Fire in my Heart] - The Forest of Beni Foughal explores the consequences of French colonialism in Algeria through the story of the “renominations” imposed in 1880. The investigation begins with the surname of Lyna, a descendant of the Beni Foughal tribe, renamed Beggah. Thanks to the website benifoughal.com*, we were able to document ourselves on the forest fires of 1881 in the Jijel region. These fires were probably acts of resistance to colonial despoilment by the indigenous people living in these forests. These fires, symbols of resilience and sacrifice, resonate with the renominations. The installation links past and present through a gesture of reparation. It evokes the continuing violence in Algeria, where the population lives under military rule. The ceramic branches speculate on resistant fires, while the metal roadblocks represent current restrictions. A conversation with Lyna's father about the difficulty of accessing the forest dialogues with Hamid Al Shaeri's song Ouda.