“Faux Guide” extends Barrada’s exploration of palaeontology, museology and natural history in Morocco .The arid region between the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert—once the floor of an ancient ocean—has become an El Dorado for fossil discoveries and exploitation. This gold rush gave birth to a pyramid-shaped industry of motivated professionals, from the autodidact fossil hunter parsing rocks on a mountainside; to “preparators” who use dental tools to expose the ancient specimens; to rock-shop operators, wholesalers, auction houses, decorators and paleontologists.Faux Guide is partly Barrada’s personal museum, with the artist as faux guide, like the casbah hustler bringing tourists into a city of his own invention.
Courtesy Pace London

All images ©Yto Barrada