Malika Sqalli
Bad Aussee
Visual Artist driven by optimism and a passion for who we are as humans in and on the earth and cosmos
Message
Malika Sqalli is a multicultural and multilingual artist who uses photography as a medium which shows “reality” in new ways, or, as the great critic John Berger put it, her images are a way of “catching the frame between the frame”, and that frame can be an idea or an emotion in the mind that she constructs in her images. Her photos (she also uses mixed media and animation) are a way of asking questions about the world and inspiring people with visual answers. Her photos are at once a form of internal and international communication, full of anthropological, geographic, and human elements that become part of a visual education
Born in Morocco, Malika moved to France in her teens and attended the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Montpelier but she was expelled for being too outside the box. She then spent several years living in London, Los Angeles and recently divided her time between Austria and Morocco. Malika is also a qualified personal trainer and holistic lifestyle coach, Kettlebell athlete and fully licensed skydiver and skydiving camerawoman. Malika has shown her work on four continents. She also did a Ted Talk in 2013 in Casablanca about one of her project - Latitude 34.
Coming from a mixed culture background, she has lived in various countries, without her family from an early age. This translates in a position of the in between, a fault line, feeling foreign and belonging in many places and none at the same time, a notion she learned to exploit as an artist. However, as the artist is driven by a propensity for optimism and hopefulness, her artworks speak volumes about this state of mind. She draws from holistic personal view on the world, where she habitually detects and is interested in links between places, similarities between people, congruences in landscapes, common wisdom and shared mythologies rather than differences and boundaries.
In Weeds or Flowers, she worked on the identity of the mountains and the toxic effect of tourism in that environment, our impact and trace as human in our consumption of nature.
She also drew a line between the world below and above, but more importantly a circle to include the forgotten public. With the students at l”Esav, for the first time in Morocco, an exhibition is conceptualise with a desire specific practical steps and even a special sensory dark room to stalk to all the senses and include cant hear and those with limited mobility
She exhibited at 1-54 in Marrakech in February 2025 and her work sold out within the first morning.
Statement
Through my work, I am performing an investigation of the perception of the self and questioning the relationship between the self, the body and the surrounding world.
I have always been interested in exploring the convergence of science, technology and personal mythology , exploring the various systems within the body, the physical, emotional, cognitive, organic, imagination.
As humans we like to make sense of things, (and ourselves), link them, map them, relate to them. It's one of the processes I use in my work. We create our own reality, mythology, anything we see we comprehend pass through the filter of our mind, culture, history, and this fascinates me.
I have returned to a slower, more analogue and tactile way of working, with a focus on our physical and spiritual connection as humans with earth and the cosmos, through transparencies and bright colours, as a way perhaps to find our true colours and playful side.