The Book of Mud

Ali Cherri

The Book of Mud is a manifesto, a reverie, a story of earth and water. Ali Cherri, the Paris-based Lebanese multidisciplinary artist, conceives The Book of Mud as an exploration of the past and the ways in which it inscribes itself physically: eroding, shaping, reforming, becoming itself through upheaval and destruction. In this project, Cherri is a storyteller in conversation with writers in both English and Arabic. Together they unveil the story of mud.

In this book of memory, Cherri understands mud as the vessel and the water within, as the brick that roots us to place and home, and the river that carries us to exploration elsewhere. Deeply embedded in narratives of creation, mud grounds life in a cycle that always finds its way back into the earth.

Artefacts, collected and encased in mudbrick, accompany the book to symbolize this timeless process. A silkscreen print visualizes a field of mudbricks drying in the sun, uniting earth, and water as the building blocks of civilization.

About The Artist

Ali Cherri (B.1976) Lives and works between Paris, France and Beirut, Lebanon. Ali Cherri works across film and installation. His work deals with the psychological repercussions of war, trauma and the paradoxical realities produced through living in an urgent, unpredictable and ever-changing state. Cherri’s recent projects investigate the circulation of archeological objects and their role in constructing historical narratives. His work often blurs the boundary between fact and fiction by employing essayistic and autobiographical narratives.  Recent exhibitions include 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art (2019), ‘Statues Also Die’, Fondazione Re Raubedengo (2018), ‘Tales from the Riverbed’, Clark House (2018), ‘Dénaturé’, Galerie Imane Fares (2017), and ‘A Taxonomy of Fallacies: The Life of Dead Objects’, Sursock Museum (2016).

The Book of Mud Ali Cherri, 2020