Yto Barrada

Yto Barrada (born 1971) is a Franco-Moroccan multimedia visual artist living and working in Tangier, Morocco and New York City. Barrada cofounded the Cinémathèque de Tanger in 2006, leading a group of artists and filmmakers. Barrada also works as an artistic director for the Tangier art house movie theatre. She was previously a member of the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation. Early life and education Barrada was born in Paris, France in 1971. Her family moved to Tangier, Morocco when she was a young girl, and Barrada claims Tangier as her hometown. Her father Hamid Barrada, former political opponent of Hassan II and leader of the student left, is a journalist and her mother, Mounira Bouzid El Alami, activist and psychotherapist. After living in Tangier for much of her life, Barrada returned to Paris to study at The University of Paris, also known as the Sorbonne, where she studied History and Political Science. Shortly after graduating, Barrada studied at the International Center of Photography in New York, New York. Now married to American film director, writer, actor, and producer Sean Gullette, Barrada splits her time between New York and Morocco. Work Barrada befriended Bettina Grossman, a reclusive artist who was a longtime resident at Hotel Chelsea. Barrada and Grossman collaborated on an exhibition called The Power of Two Suns, which was on view at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Arts Center at Governors Island in 2019. Barrada is working on a catalogue raisonné of Grossman's work.