Yto Barrada
Born in Paris in 1971, Yto Barrada is a French-Moroccan artist who lives and works between New York and Tangiers.
She studied history and political science at the Sorbonne, then photography in New York. For the past 25 years, she has deployed a multidisciplinary practice—installation, film, photography, sculpture, textiles and publishing—through long-term projects that tackle issues as diverse as the place of play in alternative pedagogies, the instrumentalization of botany in urban politics, the international trafficking of dinosaur fossils, colonial anthropology, pan-Africanism or cultural policies during the Cold War.
Yto Barrada cofounded the Cinémathèque de Tanger in 2006. She also created The Mothership, a research and residency center based around a garden of dye plants that she has been cultivating for ten years. Her work has been the subject of monographic exhibitions at institutions such as the South London Gallery (2025); MoMA and MoMA PS1 (New York, 2021 & 2024); MASS MoCA (2021); Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2022); Kunsthalle Bielefeld (2023); Barbican Centre (London, 2018); and Jeu de Paume (Paris, 2006). She has also participated in numerous biennales, including the Whitney Biennial (2022), Gwangju (2018), Marrakech (2016), Istanbul (2013), Sharjah (2011), and Venice (2007, 2011). In 2026, Barrada will represent France at the 61st Venice Biennale. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Soros Art fellowship (2023), the Mario Merz Prize and the Queen Sonja Print Award (both 2022). She is represented by Polaris Gallery (Paris), Sfeir-Semler Gallery (Beirut, Hamburg) and Pace Gallery (New York, London, Seoul, Hong Kong, Geneva, Los Angeles, Tokyo).