Mina Squalli-Houssaïni examines strategies of resistance and vulnerability in relation to structures of domination, including colonial histories and patriarchy. She subverts emblems and symbols associated with femininity and domesticity to evoke both her personal background and collective memory. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, she plays on the tension between industrial and commercial manufacturing processes and the tradition of craft. Her work functions as a way of thinking with, thinking between, and thinking otherwise. Narratives often entangle, creating webs that symbolize absence, forgotten spaces, and objects or bodies left behind. Through representations such as humanoid insects or symbolic motifs like flowers, she explores vulnerability and power, examining whether these dynamics reveal relationships of dominance or the agency of the represented subject. Squalli-Houssaïni’s practice frequently engages with mental projections of interior environments. These spaces, sometimes domestic or heterotopic, convey absence, cynicism, threat, intimacy, and vulnerability. Through her multidisciplinary approach, the artist proposes alternative narratives, offering other ways of perceiving history and telling stories. ...
