SARAHHADDOU
Selected works
Chiasmus
Performance, Vilnius Art Fair (Lithuania), 2017.
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For six hours a day, over three consecutive days, Haddou lay inside a black cross built to her exact measurements—awake, motionless, with only her hands and feet visible and accessible to the audience.
Chiasmus (from the Greek chiasma, “crossing”) stages a physical and metaphorical intersection between body and spirit, exploring elevation through discomfort and surrender.
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Film and editing: Polivas Baltinas
Photography: NendrÄ— ZilinskaitÄ—
Confession
Participatory performance, Group show at Casa Quien Gallery (Santo Domingo), 2015.
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Confession invites visitors to sit inside a dark confessional and connect their hands with the artist, seated in the opposite space.
Through this silent encounter, confession is no longer spoken but transmitted through the energy of touch—transforming the gesture into a ritual of presence, vulnerability, and mutual reverence.
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Photos: Ambiorix Martínez, Raúl Miyar, Jean Poueriet
Exposed
Performance, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art (Santo Domingo), 2013.
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Haddou lay motionless inside two adjoining boxes—one containing her head, the other her body—revealing only her neck, left visible and accessible to the audience.
Commissioned around the thematic element of air, Exposed explores the fragility of life and the element of trust.
By confronting her deepest phobia—the fear of being touched on the neck—the artist transformed exposure into transcendence.
As visitors leaned closer to observe the only visible part of her body, their breath met her own, accelerating her pulse until, after three hours of stillness, the act of surrendering to proximity and to the possibility of death became strangely liberating.
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Photos: Raúl Miyar
The Pawn
Performance, FIAC (Paris), 2016.
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As a living sculpture, Haddou walked and paused within each gallery booth at the fair, creating a visual dialogue with the exhibited works while wearing a knitted armor.
The piece reflects on the ways we build protective layers to shield ourselves from others. Made of wool and designed without arms, the armor offers no real protection—it becomes a metaphor for the illusion of comfort found in isolation and separation.
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**All artworks in the background belong to the artists represented by the galleries participating in the 2016 FIAC Art Fair.
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Photos: Daphné Keramidas
Circle
Performance, Museum of Modern Art (Santo Domingo), 2013.
Part of her solo exhibition Emergent Conscience.
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Seated on a swivel stool inside a knitted tower, Haddou wove with yarn drawn from the base of the same structure.
As the costume gradually took shape, the tower itself began to unravel—slowly revealing the body it was meant to conceal.
After three hours of continuous weaving, she left the collapsing tower wearing the piece: a living reflection of the structure, wrapped in a fragile cocoon.
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Photos: Raúl Miyar, Máximo Del Castillo
Capsules
Interactive installation, Museum of Modern Art (Santo Domingo), 2013.
Part of her solo exhibition Emergent Conscience.
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Two identical, interconnected cylindrical chambers each contained a monitor and a surveillance camera, projecting the live image of one occupant into the opposite chamber in an endless cycle of watching and being watched.
The work reflects on mechanisms of surveillance and separation, and on the invisible boundaries that divide “us” from “others.”
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Photos: Máximo Del Castillo
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Untouchable
Performance (La Romana – Santo Domingo – New York), April–May 2012.
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Untouchable was a performance in which Haddou avoided all physical contact with other human beings for two consecutive months while attempting to live a normal life among others.
This social experiment, conducted in 2012, anticipated—though under very different circumstances—the distancing restrictions experienced worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To create a symbolic boundary, she drew a circle around herself in public spaces, or placed a rope when in private settings, keeping others at arm’s length to define what she had arbitrarily established as her personal territory.
Every country has its borders; likewise, each individual carries an invisible frontier—an intimate space we claim as our own, as if it were an extension of the body.
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Photos: Raúl Miyar, Jorge Paula