La Potion (EH) (2023), Sara Sadik’s elegiac work of video art commences with a narrator who introduces a new video game and like us, is looking at the ‘gameplay’ for the first time. However, this game features an avatar of himself. Stressed and anxious the avatar sets out on a walk looking for light and healing: “We will seek happiness since it does not come to us.” Like a magic drink, La Potion takes the narrator/avatar on a journey to find a way to feel better. Imagining constellations in the sky, walking through a beautiful garden, jumping towards the sea and swimming beneath the waves he feels soothed and calmed.

Sadik’s work seeks to make visible the lives of the Maghrebi youth of France and especially the second-generation emigres from former French colonies of North Africa, who make up 28% of the population of France. Often inspired by real people she knows in her hometown of Marseille the artist explores masculine identity through computer-generated fantasy scenarios. By placing her characters in an imaginary world, she takes them out of the physical reality of contemporary urban life with all its barriers and politics. As Sadik says, “the story exists elsewhere” and a new reality is created for them. Elevated from their overlooked lives, in her stories they become heroes. “Do you remember how we started the game?” asks the avatar – from a liminal psychological space of darkness full of anxiety and fear, at the conclusion the gamer and his avatar seemed fused in a moment of peace. 

Artists’ film and video art since the 1960s has revolutionised the art world. Embraced as a new open-ended means of expression, moving image and animation allow artists to fully exploit the immersive qualities of time-based media. With Sadik the medium continues to evolve into new territory.

For all press enquiries, please contact:
Annka Kultys +447455561887 press@annkakultys.com