Hamza Halloubi

1982, lives and works in Brussels

Hamza Halloubi studied visual art at La Cambre in Brussels and HISK in Ghent, Belgium. In 2015 he was a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and had his first solo exhibition in the Netherlands at De Pont. In simple, clear and concise language, Hamza Halloubi develops in his video works narratives that unfold in a sphere that balances between documentary and fiction. His videos usually consist of long takes. These are accompanied by a narrative voice, marked by an almost undifferentiated intonation. He approaches history in a poetic manner involving recurrent themes such as reading, memory and exile. These narratives, situated somewhere between the personal and the collective, run parallel to the official version of history but also question it. Halloubi presents us with images of pain and beauty that attempt to fathom the futility of our existence while also showing our courage to carry on. His videos never 'lecture'; instead they ask the viewer to contribute his own thoughts and to adopt his own point of view. Halloubi is also a painter who often reworks older works.