About

 

SUGAR PORN appropriates the traditional Moroccan ritual of "breaking the sugar loaf" performed by women when serving tea to questions the performative hospitality that governs the relationship between tourists and locals but also the gender dynamics present in post colonial countries and beyond.

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During her two-months residency in Marrakech, the artist adventured outside of the touristic paths of the Medina to found herself by chance in a local flea market where local men used to come daily to buy and sell personal belongings in an improvised auction circle. She felt mesmerized by the authenticity of this place but also by the very masculine dynamic that dominated it. Despite her status of a “Western foreign woman”, she decided to apply the rules of “how to tame and get tamed” described by the Fox in Saint-Exupéry’s book in an attempt to build genuine human links.  She kept a diary of each of these interactions, documenting how the untold, but all-too-obvious barriers of sex and nationality that was separating her from them, was progressively altering and how the performative hospitality that is used to creating relationship between locals and tourists was shifting in the a more balanced and genuine connection.

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The artist uses the symbol of the traditional Moroccan sugar loaf, called Qalb soukar, an epitome of the art of giving and receiving hospitality for centuries, to represent these human connexions. In this video, she documents the traditional breaking process of a sugar loaf while suggesting - thru her gesture, the sound of the voices of the men of the flea market in the background but also the shape of the Qalb itself - the sexual tension and the male/female dynamic that remained at stake thru out her experience there.

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