Meriem Bennani:
Life on the CAPS Trilogy
Ticket Information
Standard: HKD 85
Concession: HKD 68
Meriem Bennani:
Life on the CAPS Trilogy
Celebrating the playful yet incisive use of digital media and docu-fiction, artist Meriam Bennani takes audiences on a speculative, three-part worldbuilding project to explore issues around displacement, biotechnology, and digital culture. Capsule (CAPS), a fictional island located in the Atlantic Ocean, began as an internment camp for people who were apprehended while they attempted to cross international borders. Held captive and monitored by the state, subsequent generations—who are sometimes represented by digital crocodile avatars—have since thrived in a megalopolis where teleportation and changeable bodies are commonplace and diasporic folk traditions reemerge as forms of resistance.
Developed and completed during the recent pandemic, the CAPS film trilogy expands and deepens Bennani’s long-time preoccupation with creating virtualised approximations of contemporary realities. Working with friends and family who played versions of themselves, the artist creates a screen-based distance between experiencing forms of alienation, anxiety, and oppression, exerted by established geopolitical powers, bodily limitations, and the globalised media landscape. As an ultra-current allegory of the world, the Life on the CAPS trilogy offers alternative modes of movement within perpetual in-between states.
Meriem Bennani. Party on the CAPS, 2018–19. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Party on the CAPS, 2018–19. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Guided Tour of a Spill, 2021. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Guided Tour of a Spill, 2021. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Life on the CAPS, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Life on the CAPS, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Life on the CAPS, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Party on the CAPS, 2018–19. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Party on the CAPS, 2018–19. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Guided Tour of a Spill, 2021. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Guided Tour of a Spill, 2021. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Life on the CAPS, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Life on the CAPS, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
Meriem Bennani. Life on the CAPS, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York
About the Artist
Meriem Bennani (b. 1988, Morocco) is a Brooklyn—based artist whose practice ranges from video art to sculpture and installation. Often referencing globalised popular culture and the fractured states of modern society, Bennani’s works question individual agency and the pervasiveness of digital technology. Offering both critical and humorous perspectives around media and politics, Bennani’s diverse experiments in 3D animation, documentary films, music videos, and soap operas have been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, Fondation Louis Vuitton, and the Shanghai Biennale, among others.
Image at top: Meriem Bennani. Party on the CAPS, 2018–19. Photo: Courtesy of the artist; CLEARING, New York/Brussels; and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles/New York