Ghizlane Sahli

Ghizlane Sahli is an award-winning, multi-disciplinary Moroccan artist who was born in 1973 in Meknes. She travelled to France to study Architecture, first at the École d’Architecture de Paris-Tolbiac and then at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville, before returning to Morocco and settling in Marrakech.

Here, she set up an embroidery atelier in conjunction with local artisan craftswomen, which became her focus for several years. 

Sahli swiftly began combining her architectural expertise with her environmental concerns in her work. In 2012, she created a dress made from waste, including garbage bags, jerry cans and plastic bottles, for a magazine feature. The positive response she received was sufficient to convince her to focus solely on her art. She decided to team up with her sister and two photographers to form the Zbel Manifesto Collective, whose mission was to create items from recycled and repurposed items. 

Today, Ghizlane Sahli has become synonymous with three-dimensional embroidery, sculptures and installations, drawing on ancestral techniques and the know-how of the women artisans who surround her to develop her contemporary ideas. Sustainability and a concern for the future of the plant lies at the heart of everything Sahli creates. Together with her team, she works organically across several disciplines, creating intriguing pieces from used items. 

Sahli plays with scales, volumes, space and materials in her methods, experimenting with plastic, metal, silk and wool, among others, to create items that are not only recycled, but also re-energised, brimming with beauty and highlighting important environmental issues. One of the talking points in her oeuvre is her ‘Alvéole’ technique, where she covers the tops of used bottles with silk threads. Her chosen subjects are often interpretations of the human body, and the intimacy of the female body in particular. Through her work, Sahli expresses her innermost feelings, with pure emotion channelled into her work, devoid of religious, social, educational or generic connotations.

Ghizlane Sahli’s work has been shown extensively in her native Morocco and abroad.

In a key milestone, Zbel Manifesto Collective participated in the 2014 Marrakesh Biennale, presenting an installation titled Pimp My Garbage. The initiative led to an invitation to take part in the launch exposition at the Mohamed VI Museum in Rabat in the same year. 

Her solo exhibitions include: ‘Pekre, Une Histoire de Femmes’, Biennale Internationale de Sculptures Ouagadougou (BISO), Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (2021); ‘When the Globe is Home’, Gallerie delle Prigione (Fondazione Bennetton), Treviso, Italy (2020); ‘La Mer(e), Origine du Monde...’, David Bloch Gallery, Marrakech, Morocco (2019); and ‘Histoires des Tripes IV’, Primae Noctis Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland, Sakhile&Me, Frankfurt, Germany, and Sulger Buel Gallery, London, UK (2018).

Ghizlane Sahli has also taken part in several group shows, including, most recently: Cologne Fine Art & Design (with Sakhile&Me), Cologne, Germany (2021); ‘Praxis of Change’, Firetti Contemporary, Dubai, UAE (2021); POSITIONS (with Sakhile&Me), Berlin, Germany (2021); ‘La Clairière d’Eza Boto’, Jardin des Plantes, Rouen, France (2021); ‘Là où est la mer...’, Passerelle Centre d’art Contemporain, Brest, France (2021); and ‘Le Jardin en Soi’, Loft Art Gallery, Casablanca, Morocco (2020).

Her work forms part of several collections, including those at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London, the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakesh, Morocco, the Galila’s POC Museum, Brussels and Fondation H in Paris, France.