The Wick Culture - Zineb Sedira. Photo: Adrian Flower

Monday Muse

Interview Zineb Sedira Is Letting Cinema Speak

Interview

Zineb Sedira

Photography

Adrian Flower

08 June 2026

Interview

Zineb Sedira

Photography

Adrian Flower

08 June 2026

For Zineb Sedira, history is not a fixed record, but a living, shifting force. It moves across borders, generations, gathers in family stories and finds new life through art. Born in France to Algerian parents and based in London since the 1980s, Sedira’s history has shaped the way she thinks about migration, belonging and memory. Her parents travelled from Algeria to France by boat, and years later she made her own journey from France to the UK in the same way. Her experience of crossing borders has become part of a wider artistic enquiry into how histories are constructed, preserved and sometimes neglected. Across film, photography, installation and performance, Sedira has built a practice around preserving and telling the stories that official narratives often leave in the margins.

Sedira often starts with a question, a story, a historical subject, or an encounter, allowing each project to find its own form. In recent years, cinema has become central to her practice. Her acclaimed installation Dreams Have No Titles, first presented at the Venice Biennale, brought these interests into focus through an exploration of postcolonial cinema.

Sedira’s latest project is her 2026 Tate Britain Commission, When Words Fall Silent, Cinema Speaks…. Installed in the Duveen Galleries, the work continues her research into Pan-African cinema through the legacy of the Cinémathèque Algérienne. Transforming Tate Britain’s neo-classical central galleries into a cinematic landscape, the installation reflects the revolutionary spirit of African filmmaking in the decades after Algerian independence in 1962, when Algiers emerged as a hub for activist filmmakers and radical thinkers from across Asia, Africa, South and Central America.

Blending reconstructed film sets, archival references and personal testimonies, Sedira explores how cinema can act as a site of solidarity and resistance. The Wick caught up with Sedira to discuss her artistic process and why Agnès Varda remains her ultimate Monday Muse.

THE WICK: What does a typical Monday look like for you?

Zineb Sedira: There are no two Mondays that are exactly the same. I do whatever is needed on the day, whether that involves dealing with administrative matters, responding to professional emails, attending meetings, or visiting art galleries and museums. Being an artist, I enjoy the variety and just adapt to the priorities of the week.

TW: Your Tate Britain Commission will be unveiled this May and marks your largest commission in the UK to date. What does it mean to be taking on a project of that scale at this moment in your career?

ZS: It is an important project, especially following the creation of my large-scale installation Dreams Have No Titles, presented at the Venice Biennale. Through that work, I began exploring the history and legacy of postcolonial cinema, and the commission for Tate Britain has given me the opportunity to further develop and deepen that research. Taking on a project of this scale at this point in my career is both a privilege and an exciting challenge, particularly as it extends the dialogue with an UK audience.

TW: You’ve described the commission as feeling both “monumental and intimate”. What did you mean by that?

ZS: It is monumental because the installation created is in an exceptionally large exhibition space, the biggest I have had to fill with work. The scale of the commission pushed me to work in a more ambitious way than ever before.

Yet, at the same time, it is intimate because it includes elements of my own experience as an artist filmmaker and a cinephile, looking at Pan-African cinema through the prism of the Cinémathèque Algérienne. So including autobiographical elements in the work creates a mise en abyme, where the piece reflects on its own subject and process.

TW: The Duveen Galleries carry such architectural grandeur and institutional weight. How have you approached entering into dialogue with a space charged with so much history and prestige?

ZS: I approached the Duveen Galleries as a space that carries complex historical and political associations connected to broader histories of empire, colonialism, slavery, and the economic systems that emerged from them.

As my work has long engaged with anti-imperialist and postcolonial questions, I felt that the proposed work was a natural fit. It offered an opportunity to create a dialogue between the work and the histories that continue to resonate within the space.

Of course Tate Britain is a prestigious museum, and am happy the galleries in which my work is presented are free to the public. This would allow for a broad audience, and help bring greater attention to the histories of African cinema.

The Wick Culture - From Zineb Sedira, Dreams Are a Language Made of Images, 2025 as seen on The Line. Credit: Angus Mill

Above From Zineb Sedira, Dreams Are a Language Made of Images, 2025 as seen on The Line. Credit: Angus Mill

TW: Your work has long moved through stories, migration and the potential unreliability of official histories. What first drew you to those themes and how has your relationship with them evolved alongside your career?

ZS: Migration is part of my personal history. My parents emigrated from Algeria to France and I from France to the UK, both by boat. As a result, I grew up aware that migration can be understood very differently depending on where one stands.

The official narratives surrounding colonialism across Europe, remain insufficiently acknowledged or discussed. But also Algeria tends to neglect its own archives, like the important role of culture, artists, and filmmakers in the struggle for independence. So the broader process of decolonisation is not widely known. When I can, I feel a responsibility to help fill these gaps through my research and work.

Each project introduces me to new archives, oral histories, and encounters, which in turn reshape my understanding of memory, mobility, and historical transmission. I am constantly discovering stories that I feel are important to share and pass on, particularly those that have been overlooked, forgotten, or marginalised.

TW: How has your multicultural experience shaped the way you see the world as an artist?

ZS: I have never experienced identity as fixed, but as something shaped by multiple cultures, languages, and histories. This has made me aware that there is never a single perspective on history or lived experience.

As an artist, I am interested in the movement of people, ideas, and images across borders. My multicultural background has shaped both the subjects I explore and the way I approach storytelling, research, and collaboration.

TW: Across photography, film, installation and performance, your practice is incredibly fluid. When a new idea arrives, how do you decide what form it will come to life in?

ZS: I do not usually begin with a particular medium in mind. Most projects start with a question, a story, an encounter, or a historical subject that I want to explore. The form emerges gradually through the research process and depends also on the budget and the space that will host the art work.

Some ideas lend themselves to film because they involve movement, narrative, or performance. Others are better expressed through photography, installation, or a combination of different media. I have never been particularly interested in working within the limits of a single discipline. Instead, I see each medium as a tool that allows me to communicate a specific idea or experience. What remains constant is my desire to create connections between histories, people, and places. The choice of form always comes afterwards, although recently filmmaking and the creation of “immersive decors” have become increasingly important ways for me to express my ideas and invite the public into an ‘experiential’ dialogue.

“What remains constant is my desire to create connections between histories, people, and places.”

TW: Cinema has become such a powerful thread in your work. What is it about film as an expressive medium that continues to captivate you?

ZS: Cinema brings together many of the elements that interest me most: image, sound, narrative, performance, history, and collective memory. It is a medium that can move between reality and fiction, the personal and the political, while reaching a wide audience.

I am also fascinated by cinema’s role in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world around us. Films do not simply reflect history; they actively participate in the construction of historical and cultural narratives. This is particularly interesting to me in relation to colonial and postcolonial histories, where cinema has often been a site of both representation and resistance.

What continues to captivate me is cinema’s ability to create connections across time, place, and experience, and to open up new ways of seeing and understanding the world.

TW: There is such beauty in the way your work resists forgetting. What role do you think storytelling can play in how we remember and reframe the past?

ZS: Storytelling plays a crucial role in how we understand and transmit history. Facts and archives are important, but stories allow us to connect emotionally with the past and to hear voices that have often been overlooked or excluded from official narratives.

For me, storytelling is not only about remembering; it is also about reframing. It can challenge established histories, reveal hidden connections, and create space for alternative perspectives. Through storytelling, we can revisit the past not as something fixed, but as something that remains open to interpretation and dialogue.

Much of my work is driven by a desire to bring forgotten or marginalised stories back into public consciousness and to explore how they continue to resonate in the present.

TW: Who is your current artistic inspiration?

ZS: I am inspired less by a single artist than by encounters, conversations, and discoveries that emerge through my research. Each project introduces me to new filmmakers, writers, musicians, activists, and historical figures whose stories influence my thinking.

TW: London has been such an important city in your life and work. What does it continue to give you creatively?

ZS: London has always inspired me through its diversity and cultural energy. When I arrived in the 1980s, Brixton was particularly important. Its vibrant music scene, shaped by Caribbean, African, and Black British cultures, introduced me to new forms of creativity and expression.

Many of the themes I explore in my work were shaped by my experience of growing up in Paris and then moving to London. Witnessing the distinct histories of immigration and colonialism in Britain, in contrast to France, has contributed significantly to the way I think about identity, belonging, and cultural exchange.

TW: What’s your favourite Culturally Curious spot in London to visit on your time off?

ZS: Brixton remains one of my favourite places in London. I live in the area, and I continue to be inspired by its rich cultural history, its music scene, and the diversity of its communities. It is a place where different histories, cultures, and generations meet, and that spirit of exchange continues to resonate with many of the themes I explore in my work.

TW: A favourite film you would pass on to a loved one?

ZS: I would choose Salut les Cubains (1963) by Agnès Varda. I have always admired the way she combines photography, archival material, music, and dance to create a vivid portrait of a particular historical moment. Her use of “animated photography” is remarkably inventive, and the film demonstrates how cinema can be both politically engaged and formally experimental. It is a work that continues to inspire me and one I would happily pass on to others.

TW: Who is your ultimate Monday Muse?

ZS: It would be Agnès Varda as I admire her curiosity, her freedom to move between different mediums, and her ability to connect personal stories with broader social and political histories. Her work is a constant reminder that art can be both experimental and deeply human.