object for body / Body as an Object: A Laboratory of Transformation

This workshop proposes an experimental research laboratory exploring the relationship between the body, objects, and systems of representation. It is grounded in the idea that everyday objects are not fixed in meaning, but continuously reshaped by perception, memory, and dream.

In our daily lives, objects are usually defined through language and function; we categorize them as tools, furniture, media devices, or commodities. However, this functional clarity contrasts with their presence in dreams, where objects appear unstable, symbolic, and often irrational. This workshop will investigate the tension between these two states: the rational world of use and classification, and the opaque, fluid world of dreams.

Through performative and collective experimentation, participants will engage with objects beyond their conventional meanings. By manipulating, repeating, displacing, and recontextualizing objects, we aim to dissolve their fixed identities. Much like repeating a word until it loses meaning, objects in this laboratory become “things” detached from their original purpose, opening space for new associations driven by intuition, memory, and imagination.

The workshop is structured as a laboratory of transformation, where language, movement, and image interact freely rather than serving predefined meanings. Participants will explore how new forms of representation emerge when objects shift from functional entities to speculative agents.

This workshop is suitable for participants 16 years and older, with prior performance experience.

Youness Atbane

Born in 1982 in Safi, Morocco, Youness Atbane is an artist working across a variety of media. By examining ambiguity and origins through experience and variation, Atbane seeks to enhance the dynamic between audience and author, objectifying emotions and investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.

In 2002, he studied graphic art and design in Casablanca. He has been involved in various artistic programs and performances in France, Morocco, Belgium, and Spain. In 2008, he earned an MA in choreography from the "EX E.R.CE08" program at the National Choreographic Centre of Montpellier. In 2010, he obtained a Master’s degree in Art and Museology from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France.

His work bears strong political references, responds directly to his surrounding environment, and uses his own everyday experiences as a starting point. With a subtle, minimalist approach, he seeks to seduce the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events in order to find poetic meaning in everyday life. His artistic interests focus on the limitations of communication used to visualize reality, the attempt at dialogue, the dissonance between form and content, and the dysfunctions of language. In short, the lack of clear references is a key element in his work.

Atbane currently lives and works in Casablanca and Berlin. He has exhibited his installations and performances at La Casa Encendida in Madrid, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, the Parallel Project at the 2011 Venice Biennale, the Talmart Gallery in Paris, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Mohammed VI Museum of Contemporary Art in Rabat, and, most recently, the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco.