Laureate of the SAM 2021 prize, Dalila Dalléas Bouzar presents Vaisseau infini [Infinite Vessel], a monumental work of embroidery created in Tlemcen in collaboration with Algerian craftspeople, both amateur and professional.

At the Palais de Tokyo, Vaisseau infini unfolds in the form of a vast tent which welcomes the public for a range of events. The embroidered patterns are based on a series of drawings created by the artist at Tassili N’Ajjer, a rocky plateau in the Saharan desert in southern Algeria. On this site, over several millennia at the Neolithic Age, people traced out their history and depicted their environment on stone cliffs, transforming the plateau into a unique, open-air record of human history, the relationships between people and animals, ways of life, and representations of gender and sexuality. Dalila Dalléas Bouzar sees in these ancient drawings and carvings the representation of a utopia: the distant past from which they emerge constitutes for her a continuum capable of transporting us towards an infinite future, beyond the domination and oppression that have marked Algeria’s recent history.

A dreamlike, intimate and ritualistic space, the tent of Vaisseau infini instills an atmosphere conducive to attention. Throughout the autumn, philosophers, artists and historians will give readings and share stories with the public.