Katia Kameli is exhibiting at the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles
Festival dates: 6 July to 4 October 2026
Opening week: 6 to 12 July 2026
Institut Français, Saison Méditerranée 2026 : quatre expositions aux Rencontres d’Arles, 3 July 2026
“From 6 July to 4 October 2026, the Rencontres photographiques d’Arles will focus its programme on an exploration of memory, movement and heritage in the Mediterranean. Four exhibitions curated by Katia Kameli, Bruno Boudjelal, Anne-Lise Broyer and Orianne Ciantar Olive are being supported on this occasion as part of the 2026 Mediterranean Season, organised by the Institut français.
In this new chapter presented in Arles, Katia Kameli examines and expands upon the potential of Assia Djebar’s poetic film La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua (1978). In it, she interviews the lead actress, Sawsan Noweir, and captures the reappearance of the film’s iconic locations and figures, from the caves of Tipaza to the potters of Mount Chenoua, who carry on an ancestral craft. For the first time, the artist also draws on her own life story, making the passing on of gestures and memories a central theme of the work. Clément Dirié has been appointed curator of the exhibition.”
Article by Ludovic Thomas, 5 July 2026
“Arles Photography Festival: Katia Kameli opens a new chapter in her “Algerian Novel”
The Franco-Algerian artist and filmmaker Katia Kameli unveils her new project at Saint-Blaise Church. A film about the passing on of both skills and memories between women.”
Article by Clément Dirié, 10 July 2026
“The Algerian Novel, this fascinating iconographic investigation undertaken by Katia Kameli since 2016, is neither a monument nor an anti-monument. It is a work in progress that connects voices, imaginations and historical and cultural moments to restore depth to Algeria’s history and collective memory. A polyphonic film-essay, it offers, chapter by chapter, an embodied reflection on the construction of images in all their diversity: postcards, press photographs, works of art and everyday objects are analysed and examined in terms of what they reveal about the past and project into the future.”
Katia Kameli, Photogram from the Algerian Novel (A New Chapter), Noweir Sawsan, 2025, video. Courtesy of the artist and ADAGP, Paris.
