Youcef holds a Fine Art & Art History degree from the Manchester School of Art (MMU) and was awarded the MSoA Award from HOME Manchester in 2017. His artistic practice often deconstructs the notions around social adaptations and differences, scrutinises identity politics and preserves a visual discourse around the Diasporic queerness with an anthropological focus on North African and cultures.
Youcef has a proven record of exhibiting across the UK and has collaborated with prominent organisations including Manchester International Festival, LADA (London), HOME Manchester, Journeys Festival International and P21 Gallery (London). In parallel to his artistic practice, he has also succeeded a number of professional roles within the creative producing industry including currently with Shubbak Festival.
His queer, North African identity has formed the basis of both his artistic practice and individuality, which he uses as tools for expression and interpretation of ideas. This has led him to use bodies and people as socio-political, metaphoric devices that enable him to document ideas that question societal norms and explore the intricacies of social adaptations and differences.
Youcef work with this approach to help him understand and deconstruct the politics around Diasporic queerness to create a coherent visual discourse that challenges and questions collective behaviour and understanding. Similarly, he is often inspired by the normative replications of the ‘traditional’, an idea that he perceives through a lens that has been characterised by centuries of colonialism and post-colonialism, one that enables him to scrutinise subject matter through a historical lens, giving political context to his arguments and visual outcomes.
The full list of partners involved in LIBERTY are: Art Reach (UK), Altonale GmbH (Germany), Explora, Museo dei Bambini (Italy), CESIE (Italy), Teatrul National Radu Stanca Sibiu (Romania), Aalborg Karneval (Denmark), Center E8, for promoting lifestyles (Serbia), CNC Danse (Nathalie Cornille Company) (France), Pionirski dom – Center za kulturo mladiih (Slovenia), Den Selvejende Institution Swinging Europe (Denmark), Trafo House of Contemporary Arts (Hungary), European Educational Exchanges – Youth for Understanding (Belgium).