Bouchra Khalili The Hypothesis of a New Community (to Come): Speaking a Collective voice in/from the 1st-personal Singular This Phd research starts from my practice in film and video. Since the early 2000’s, I have devoted myself to the making of works examining through a collaborative method how filmic forms can create a space for subjects rendered invisible by the nation-state model: stateless citizens, individuals forced to cross borders illegally, undocumented workers, 2nd-class citizens from immigrant descent in global north countries. Through my practice, I aim at suggesting forms of belonging freed from the restrictive and normative conceptions of the nation-state model that proceeds by exclusion to define the “right to belong” to a political community.

In all of my film and video works, visual and sonic forms are combined to create a space in which the ones concerned in the first place are represented with and through their own bodies, their own voices, their own words, their own languages - including their native unwritten languages and dialects - their own situated positions (social, political, historical), and eventually their own world views. From the 1st-person singular they formulate a “right to belong” and implicitly convey the hypothesis of a potential new political community to come into being. For this Phd research, and starting from my work and the reflection I have developed with and through it, my Phd research will discuss the following research question: How can film allow us to envision a potential political community starting with and from those who are excluded from the “right to belong”?

Bouchra Khalili is a Moroccan-French visual artist that works with film, installation and photography.