
M’barek Bouhchichi Moroccan , b. 1975
Agave seeds, 2025
Nickel silver and Maillechort metal
92h x 24 diam cm each
MB-000142
Agave Seeds (2025) is made of nickel silver, a blend of copper, zinc, and nickel. Copper, a mineral and a pure chemical element, was historically used as a medium of...
Agave Seeds (2025) is made of nickel silver, a blend of copper, zinc, and nickel. Copper, a mineral and a pure chemical element, was historically used as a medium of exchange in the Sahel region, copper metallurgy being native to Niger and Mauritania. It is a mineral associated with circulation and transaction, as well as ritual and healing. Using copper alloys is a way for the artist to suggest the promise of transformation that the experience of migration entails. For Bouhchichi, the agave’s life cycle resembles the fate of those who decide to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea in pursuit of a better life for themselves and their kin. Collective survival requires individual sacrifice. For all his endeavors towards instituting a Black space of representation, Bouhchichi refuses all ideas of racial purity. Marked by physical displacement and existential placelessness, Black life is inherently multiple and, as such, must be thought of in relation. Blackness cannot be reduced to a single model.