Houda Terjuman (born in 1970) lives and works in Marrakech, Morocco.
In tracing the cultural and familial roots of Moroccan-based artist Houda Terjuman, one embarks on a journey that spans the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Her strength lies in her multicultural background, while her profound creativity is expressed through love—and the trials, experiences, and emotions that come with it.
In today’s world of cultural hybridity, individuals often experience displacement and uprootedness, leaving deep reverberations on their identities. Terjuman observes this reality with tenderness and translates it into poetic visual language—through fragments of land, roots, books, trees, ruins, and objects left behind. Despite the sensitivity of these themes and the pain they may carry, her work remains generous and uplifting. It captures fleeting moments of joy: an inner peace, a cherished memory, a green land, a quiet happiness.
In her practice, the figure of the exiled human becomes a metaphorical uprooted tree—a symbol of the painful journey toward reclaiming stability within the fluid, shifting space of contemporary existence.
For Terjuman, sculpture serves as a foundational means of shaping space—a space that becomes a site for living and negotiating identity in the face of otherness. The artist naturally turned to three-dimensional sculpture to convey a narrative of evolution: from uprootedness to the search for home, from resilience to eventual rest. It is a process that encompasses individuals, communities, and the world.
Trees and biological systems become metaphors for cultural conditions—uprooted, yet re-rooted in multiple directions through transformed practices. These new roots, rather than delving deep into the earth, expand across its surface, symbolizing adaptability, survival, and the creation of new identities in response to external pressures.