This three-channel video projects nine separately filmed performances by an international array of musicians—Hassan Hajjaj’s own rock stars. Like his still photographs of figures drawn from his childhood experiences in Morocco, for which Hajjaj is best known, the musicians wear clothes he has designed, and stand in spaces covered by patterns he has selected, seated on recycled red plastic (Arabic) Coca Cola crates. As each performs, the others become the audience. The musicians include a traditional Moroccan Gnawa (a type of North African ritual music) performer, a Brazilian Capoiera master, and a pair of Jamaican-descent female rappers, dressed in colorful hejab, who begin "Bismila, yah…".
Hajjaj’s photography and now his video work depict a globalized society where the boundaries of cultural identity, whether African, Arab or Western, are continuously pushed and blurred. Clad in traditional fabrics as well as clothes and shoes branded with LV or Nike logos, his sitters/performers bridge the gap between now and then, us and them, high and low culture, which Hajjaj seamlessly fuses into a reflection of his own life’s journey.
Better known among private collectors, Hajjaj’s work has also been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.
