Morocco’s Mariam Abouzid Souali Wins 2022 Beyond Future Art Prize

Rabat – Moroccan Artist Mariam Abouzid Souali has won the 2022 Beyond Future Art International Prize; an award intended to encourage artists from around the world to address the environment, sustainable living and climate change in their work.

“My works are in line with the objective of the Beyond Future Art award, aiming to bear witness to the social and geopolitical issues of our time, both in the local context of Morocco and the African continent and worldwide,” the winner said on the award’s official portal.

She noted that his work attempts to highlight the reality of human societies, which are only one link among others in a complex system, believing that the quest for emergence must go hand in hand with respect for this system.

“From one painting to another, I draw a fictional space that invites the observer to become aware of the complexities inherent in the relationship between the human being and his environment,” she explained.

On the subject matter of her works, she emphasized that she seeks to highlight the growing dangers of over-exploitation of natural resources by bringing together elements as dissimilar as children’s playthings on the one hand, and containers, cityscapes, harbors or other images of the hustle and bustle of modern life on the other.

“My main driving force as an artist is the desire to raise questions about sustainable living and to bear witness, in particular, to climate change and its relationship to other contemporary issues, such as migration, global economic imbalances, and the social and political crises the world is going through,” she said.

Mariam Abouzid Souali, whose art practice seeks to bear witness to current social, geopolitical and environmental issues, uses the game of childhood to provoke a fictional narrative about the intersections between the natural environment, geopolitics and economics.

“For me, art is a means of expression, a space for resistance, a trigger for transformation, for life. I find particular pleasure in dealing with the constraints of painting and drawing, because, these constraints allow me, against all odds, to intensely experience my vocation of freedom,” noted the young artist.

The Beyond Future Art Award aims to reveal and promote talented artists so that they are noticed by the general public and commercial partners in the field of contemporary art.