Karima Boudou

Karima Boudou is currently serving as Curator at S.M.A.K., the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art – Ghent. Trained in art history (Montpellier, Rennes) and philosophy (Nanterre), Karima Boudou participated in the Curatorial Training Programme at De Appel, Amsterdam, from 2012–13.

Prior to S.M.A.K. In the past ten years, she has organized research projects, exhibitions, conferences, and publications with institutions in Europe and Morocco; such as De Appel, Mu.ZEE Kunstmuseum aan Zee, Institut Français des Pays-Bas / Maison Descartes, Palais de Tokyo, Deutsches Architektur Zentrum, Fondation Ricard, Stedelijk Museum, L’appartement 22, Le Cube, the Marrakech Biennale, MAMCO and the University Mohammed V in Rabat.

Her work intersects theoretically and practically with postcolonial theory and the reactualization of archives and decentered histories of modern and contemporary art, considering strategically the politics of vision and visibility in art history. In 2017 she was a Research Fellow at MAC VAL Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, where she conducted research in the archive of Raoul-Jean Moulin’s archive.

Her recent work, reactivated from Morocco, is invested in new research lines on the life and oeuvre of African-American Surrealist Ted Joans. This three-day public forum drew points and lines between private American and Dutch archives by reactualizing the legacies of artists and writers of African descent in the international Surrealist movement.

Her most recent work focuses on the life and archive of politician and pan-Africanist Mehdi Ben Barka. She proceeds by resonance and ricochet to question via multiple ramifications history and identity – while crossing political praxis and theoretical reflection. The three public presentations of this research took place at Formerly Known as Witte de With in Rotterdam (2020), with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2021), and at West Den Haag (2022).