The Weight

mounir fatmi
The Weight, 2017
Found objects
Variable Dimensions

The Weight presents a weight scale with several versions of the Qur'an, in French, Arabic, and English weighing down the scale. These represent all the languages which fatmi has studied or read verses from the Qur'an in, but it’s also about the fragmentation and fleetingness of language. For the artist, after so many years in Europe, speaking Arabic, his mother tongue, now feels awkward, not intuitive but it remains a core part of his identity. It is as if he is suspended between different worlds.