KHALID BOUAALAM is a Marrakech-based visual artist whose work explores society, the environment, and collective identity through sculpture, drawing, and installation. Influenced by the pottery heritage of Safi, he works with materials such as clay, wood, video, and iron.
He exhibited in The Promise of Trace (2023) at Malhoun Art Space (Marrakech). In 2024, he joined the Tae’thir project in Marseille, addressing the struggles of artisans in Safi. In 2025, he participated in another group show at Malhoun, presented his practice in an open studio, and took part in an artist residency at Art Omi in Hudson, New York.

My artistic practice is rooted in an engagement with memory, environment, and social history. I work across sculpture, drawing, video, and installation to explore the traces left by human hands, particularly through craft and collective labor. Clay is central to my work—not only as a material but as a witness to transformation, tradition, and resistance.
Influenced by the pottery heritage of Safi, where I grew up, I investigate how artisans shape their environments and how these environments, in turn, shape their identities. Through this, I reflect on questions of marginalization, spatial injustice, and the disappearance of traditional knowledge in the face of urban development and globalization.
My recent projects have focused on the stories of displaced artisans from Wad Sha3ba in Safi, blending documentary video with archival reconstruction and performative installations. I see craft not as a nostalgic practice, but as a living language that can challenge dominant narratives and reimagine new ways of inhabiting the world.
By bringing together materials such as clay, iron, and wood with sound, image, and gesture, I aim to create spaces where memory and matter meet—where forgotten voices can be heard, and where the personal becomes political.