Working primarily in film and video, Bouchra Khalili reflects the nomadic and often transnational state of existence that defines life for many people throughout the world. Khalili uses a mode of poetic documentation to illuminate the lived realities of an increasingly mobilized world. Her newest work, commissioned by Pérez Art Museum Miami, is the third and final chapter of The Speeches Series. A video trilogy (2012-2013).

Khalili’s videos provide a vehicle through which her subjects deliver affecting speeches, expressing their own complex status within their adopted and native homelands in the language of their choice. Speeches – Chapter 1: Mother Tongue (2012) addresses language itself through a reinterpretation of famous political texts from history. Shot in Genoa, Italy, Speeches – Chapter 2: Words on Streets (2013), explores issues of citizenship, belonging, and nationalism through original manifestos written and presented by each subject.

The last chapter of The Speeches Series, which will debut at PAMM, was produced in New York and focuses on immigrants who live and work in the city. These subjects reveal the political consciousness inherent to their clandestine lives and labor, creating a meaningful and urgent discourse on the contemporary, immigrant working class.

Pérez Art Museum Miami, formerly Miami Art Museum, is a vital cultural and educational center in one of the fastest growing regions in the country, where a confluence of Caribbean, North American, and South American cultures adds vibrancy and variety to civic activity. With the opening of its Herzog & de Meuron-designed building in downtown Miami in December 2014, the Museum serves as a resource commensurate with Miami’s thriving community of artists, designers, and collectors, its art-engaged public, and the location of some of the world’s most important art and design fairs. PAMM is committed to collecting art of the 20th and 21st centuries and that represents and responds to Miami’s cultural diversity. The Museum’s new facility has enabled the Museum to expand its exhibition, public, and progressive education programs, and to provide its community with innovative and exciting cultural experiences.

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