Not Everything That Is Said Finds Someone Who Wants to Hear It; Not Everything That Finds Someone Who Wants to Hear It Is Said at the Right Time. By Sara Ouhaddou. Part of the exhibition cycle “Potential Legacies”, curated by Oriol Fontdevila

Sara Ouhaddou (Draguignan, France, 1986) interprets the forgetting of Al-Andalus as a symptom of Europe’s difficulties in assimilating Arab populations, both those currently living on the continent and those who did so for almost nine centuries. The artist’s working hypothesis is that, since no written records have survived concerning the Muslim community that settled in Girona in the 8th century, objects must be interrogated in order to untangle the self-interested forms of forgetting and restore a presence to the legacy of Al-Andalus.

An aphorism attributed to Ali ibn Abi Talib (600–661) permeates the entire installation:

“Not everything that is known should be said; not everything that is said finds someone who wants to hear it; not everything that finds someone who wants to hear it is said at the right time; and not everything that is said at the right time is necessarily true.”

The phrase has been carved into large wooden blocks, evoking the decorative use of Kufic script in Islamic architecture. The letters also appear charred, referring to the cliché according to which the Muslim presence on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages was limited to the burning of urban centres.

The letters also serve as supports for a series of reproductions of objects originating from Al-Andalus and preserved in the counties of Girona. These objects bear witness to the exchanges that did indeed take place between the different population groups that coexisted for long periods during the Middle Ages. Ouhaddou underscores this by choosing black pottery as the material and technique for the reproductions, whose production is believed to have existed in this region since Neolithic times and which has been promoted as part of its cultural identity.

“Potential Legacies” is an exhibition cycle organised by Bòlit, Centre d’Art Contemporani de Girona, which, throughout 2026 and 2027, presents a series of newly commissioned artistic projects based on case studies concerning heritage controversies that originate in, or extend into, the counties of Girona.

Activity linked to the celebration of the city’s 2,100th anniversary, “Girona, 2,100 years.”