Meriem Benanni

Born in 1988, Brooklyn-based artist Meriem Bennani spent her childhood between Rabat and Paris, earning an MFA from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and a BFA from The Cooper Union in New York. Drawing inspiration from her native Morocco, the radically different cultures of Morocco and New York City are combined with Bennani’s invented cast of animated digital characters, immersing the viewer in an environment of brightly colored, geometric forms and surfaces. When she is not online, she doubles as a designer for JNOUN, a creative studio she founded with her sister, Zahra Bennani. Commissioned by Art Dubai projects, Bennani produced Ghariba/Stranger, the 2017 Art Dubai Bar – an interactive installation featuring playful video portraits of Moroccan women in a series of viewing stations, sending visitors on a game-like journey through the installation to uncover a larger narrative.

The Art Dubai Portraits are produced in collaboration with Forward James Filmmakers.