Salim Bayri (b. Casablanca 1992) makes sculptures in virtual reality while listening to obsolete online chatrooms where strangeness, blasphemy, and pulling each other's leg are common practices. As a polyglot, Bayri can enter many of the different rooms where diasporas gather.
Salim is rooted in what he calls, a 'Hadra1 Collider' (also spelled: '7adra2 Collider' or '8adra3 Collider') - a conceptual device he coined referring to the Large Hadron Collider which imagines a particle accelerator built inside his throat.
By adding tongues and making words strike each other, he hopes to find the particle-x in languages and thereby answer questions related to cultural violence. He materializes this physically by disrupting materials such as sand, bread and 3D printed cork. He makes it audible through vocalizing narrative and creates sonic rhythms with his brother Tayeb in the music duo BAZOGA. Bayri’s alter ego “Sad Ali,” short for Sad Alien, reflects the condition of the diasporic polyglot. Sad Ali is a silent character with a translucent body – he explores but is not a participant. He floats between scenes in virtual reality and is granted a fluidity that cannot be pinned down.
38adra (الهضرة) in Moroccan Darija means 'talk'.
27adra (حضرة) means 'procession'.
1Hadra is a made-up word in between both.
Salim Bayri went to the Rijksakademie (NL), holds a BA in Arts and Design from the Escola Massana (CAT) and a MA in Media, Art, Design and Technology from the Frank Mohr Institute (NL). He's been nominated for the Amsterdam Prijs Voor de Kunst and the Vordemberge Gildewart Award. He has shown in art spaces and institutions such as W139 (Amsterdam), Galerie van Gelder (Amsterdam), Motel Spatie (Arnhem), Alyssa Davis Gallery (New York), ADN Gallery (Barcelona), Azkuna Zentroa (Bilbao), GVCC (Casablanca), and La Capella (Barcelona) among others.
