Performance programme 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House, London

Co-curated with Jean Feline and Taïs Bean

For 1-54 London, Hana Tefrati performs Desire Path, a new durational performance transforming the West Wing corridor of Somerset House into a ‘desire path’ to call attention to the marginal spaces the queer community occupies in Morocco.

Based between Marrakech and Berlin, Hana Tefrati (b. 1983) is a performer, dancer, artist, curator and activist working with themes of queer identity, the body in movement and social spaces of interaction. In ‘Desire Path’ Hana Tefrati invites the audience to join her, to deepen this track’s groove to a point of recognition. Paying homage to the pioneers in the country who have been walking on the edge and in the shade she acknowledges a community that has had to melt into the background and tread lightly. Lying on her back and using her hips for propulsion, Tefrati will travel through the corridor in the West Wing of Somerset House in her crocheted djellaba, made from one continuous string that will unravel as she finds her way and cuts her path.Desire paths thread across this world, leaving marks of resistance. These ways trace feet and hooves that leave the official routes and find an alternative journey from origin to destination. Over time and with the perseverance of the trail-makers, these marginal paths pave a new way and the urge for freedom gets folded back into the fabric of society. How many people, moving across physical, emotional, and spiritual landscapes, does it take to open new routes?