Review by Olivia Gilmore
1752 Photos
Lydia Ourahmane
April 25th – May 28th, 2026
Galerie Chantal Crousel
10 rue Charlot
75003 Paris
Lydia Ourahmane’s 1752 Photos closes this week at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris. In lieu of a traditional exhibition statement, visitors read a personal letter written to Ourahmane by friend and curator, Negar Azimi. In it, she observes, “This show is taking place in France. Do you think about that? From an Algerian point of view, France is obviously a font of oppression. A former colonial power that has strenuously avoided acknowledging its crimes; its efforts to erase, pulverize, invisibilize. Is part of this about making visible what has been obscured?”
While Ourahmane reveals what has been concealed, the format of the works themselves — film negatives displayed side-by-side with their positive contact sheets — remains resolutely reticent; it demands proximity on the part of the viewer. Then and only then, after a serious and close regard, we feel that we’ve brushed the surface, the emulsion-layer of Ourahmane’s serpentine documentation of Algeria. After all, these photos were never destined for exhibition, let alone in France.
Lydia Ourahmane, 1752 Photos, exhibition view, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris (2026). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel. Photo: Jiayun Deng —Galerie Chantal Crousel.
Lydia Ourahmane 37 Photos (Hassi Mefsoukh, Front de Mer, Oran) 2017, 2026 Négatifs, planche-contact positive, verre, plomb | Negatives, positive contact sheet, glass, lead 31.4× 27× 0.7 cm — 12 3/8× 10 5/8×1/4 in encadré | framed chaque | each | Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris. Photo: Jiayun Deng — Galerie Chantal Crousel
This contradiction, small images, hidden in plain sight — archival in nature – paired with the intimacy of Azimi’s letter to Ourahmane, gives an impression of a protectiveness on Ourahmane’s part. Perhaps, we as viewers aren’t meant to have full, intimate knowledge of these histories. Rather, we are granted access to clues and this documentation as proof. Simultaneously, some of the film negatives reveal underexposed images, which appear in their positive form, devoid of anything. The cave paintings from Tassili N’Ajjer disappear in the printed contact sheet; we can make out the faint lines in the cave only in the negative form. A symbolic gesture that deepens the implicit paradox of exposure/concealment in this exhibition. Collectively, the photos read like a road trip: portraits of people met along the way, abandoned cars, a pyramid illuminated by blue, yellow, and pink lights, barber’s shops, self-portraits, a cemetery, and the foreboding flame of an oil refinery.
Lydia Ourahmane, 1752 Photos, exhibition view, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris (2026). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel. Photo: Jiayun Deng —Galerie Chantal Crousel.
A third room — preceded by a mound of soil smuggled from Oran – is empty except for a placard instructing visitors to press their phones against it to watch the video Haraga ‘The Burning,’ (2014), Ourahmane’s earliest work which invokes an Arabic argot meaning ‘those who burn,’ referring to people who attempt illegal immigration to Europe by boat — a practice that, in 2024 alone, caused over 10,457 deaths or disappearances, according to the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project. One of the men in the video says, ‘Everything is going to be fine.’
Lydia Ourahmane, 1752 Photos, exhibition view, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris (2026). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel. Photo: Jiayun Deng —Galerie Chantal Crousel.
Lydia Ourahmane Haraga – ‘The Burning’, 2014 (still) Transmission vidéo sans fil | Wireless video transmission 1min13s | Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris.