Mohamed Bourouissa

Mohamed Bourouissa (b. 1978, Blida, Algeria) is a French artist whose practice spans photography, video, installation, and performance. He lives and works in Paris. He studied at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris.

His early series Périphérique (2005–08) produced large-format color photographs of the French banlieue in which the staging of figures and light directly recalls the compositional conventions of Old Master painting — Géricault, Delacroix, David — transposing the codes of historical painting onto the contemporary periphery. The series established his reputation and remains one of the most discussed bodies of photography in recent French art. Subsequent projects moved between photography and social practice: Free Trade (2009–12) documented an informal economy in Algiers; Urban Riders (2011–12) followed a group of young horse riders in the Philadelphia suburbs; Temps Mort (2009) was a work made through mobile phone exchanges with inmates in a French prison. His later practice has incorporated live performance, sound, and archival research. He participated in documenta 14 (Kassel and Athens, 2017) and the 34th São Paulo Biennial (2021).

Solo exhibitions include presentations at the Palais de Tokyo, the MAMAC in Nice, and institutions in Europe and the United States.