Open Space #19 Mohammad Alfaraj

As part of its Open Space programme, the Fondation Louis Vuitton invites Saudi artist Mohammad Alfaraj (born 1993, Saudi Arabia) to create a site-specific work in Gallery 8, marking his first solo exhibition in a French institution.

A multidisciplinary artist, Mohammad Alfaraj lives and works in the oasis of Al Ahsa, where he develops a practice that combines writing, video, photography, drawing and sculpture.

Steeped in the oral traditions of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Alfaraj draws on social practices, urban and rural architecture and everyday storytelling to explore the relationships between humans and nature.

His works often take the form of poetic fables that examine contemporary ecological, social and cultural issues.

The exhibition I'd rather be a dragonfly than a lion brings together a set of previously unseen video works within an installation made up of objects, photographs and drawings.

Nourished by the collective imaginaries of his homeland, his stop-motion animated videos give form to poetic narratives written and performed by the artist himself.

Working with a deliberately economical approach, Mohammad Alfaraj carries out the entire creative process himself: writing, shaping the characters and sets, filming and animation.

Rooted in the cultural context of Al-Ahsa, these stories blend imagination, collective memory and our relationship with living things, finding a universal resonance well beyond their context of origin.