Mohamed Bourouissa presents Why Did I Choose to Make Music - Le Diouck presents Fatéouma

The Bourse de Commerce and Berlin-based music label PAN present Why Did I Choose to Make Music, a performance by visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker Mohamed Bourouissa, marking the release of his eponymous album on the label—a compilation of tracks that run through his body of work. Emerging from Why Did I Choose to Make Music is multidisciplinary artist Le Diouck, who will present Fatéouma, a premiere performance and first stage immersion into the world of his upcoming album Amiral Circus, also set to be released on PAN. Fatéouma traces the contours of a poetic, labyrinthine universe where music, storytelling, and embodiment intertwine.

About Why Did I Choose to Make Music

Why Did I Choose to Make Music questions what music can be—it’s a listening experience, a concert, a play, a manifesto; a space for experimentation infused with frequencies, cries, noise, rhythms, words, and images.

Mohamed Bourouissa conceives sound as a vehicle for storytelling and memory—often charged with trauma. Working with frequencies, noise, and breath opens a space for healing, a possibility for catharsis. His relationship to sound has always echoed hybrid artistic forms, as seen in Temps Morts (2009), a video composed of message exchanges and mobile phone footage. Its title directly references Booba’s cult album, a landmark in French rap.

Bourouissa’s deeper engagement with music began in 2017 in Beirut, when he met musician and guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui. Together they created Sidi Kubi, a compilation blending experimental music and oriental sounds. From that point on, sound became an essential material in his artistic practice, growing increasingly central. In 2021, he collaborated with musician and programmer Jordan Quiqueret on Brutal Family Roots, a sound piece revolving around the mimosa plant, intertwining sound and poetry. That same year, he furthered this exploration with Hara !!, a duet with Valentina Fanigliulo—she composed the sonic textures while Bourouissa shaped the vocal work, drawing on the cries of lookout boys in Marseille. For the past two years, the artist has deepened this path, with sound now forming a structural axis of his work—as exemplified by his 2024 exhibition Signal at the Palais de Tokyo, conceived as an album.

With the participation of: Lou-Adriana Bouziouane, Le Diouck, Mehdi Anede, Cynthia Léon, Diong-Keba Tacu, Rachid-Amir Moudir, Mushy, Christophe Jacques.

Thanks to Simon-Élie Galibert, Yumi Fujitani, Matière Noire and T2G.

About Mohamed Bourouissa

Born in 1978 in Blida, Algeria, Mohamed Bourouissa lives and works in Paris. His practice constructs narratives around marginalized urban societies, closely portraying collective practices. From intimate scenes in the suburbs of La Courneuve, Pantin, or Argenteuil to the African American horsemen of Philadelphia, his visual universe consistently reflects a deep interest in the excluded, as well as the processes of integration and exclusion shaping our contemporary world. Through constantly evolving forms, Bourouissa accumulates images—staged or spontaneous—that echo the masters of painting and photography, appearing as fragments of a socio-economically charged reality.

About Fatéouma

An introspective album, Amiral Circus gave rise to a trilogy of graphic novels titled Codex Cineris, co-written with Yasmeen El Hamdani. The first volume will be published in 2026. This fable follows the intertwined destinies of two souls in the medieval fantasy world of Omoro: Grace, a young woman brought back to life as a cyborg searching for her fragmented memories, and Joke, a broken circus clown, a laughing elf imprisoned by his melancholy. On June 25 at the Bourse de Commerce, Le Diouck brings these characters to life through a stage journey that merges concert and storytelling. Fatéouma thus marks the first bridge between his upcoming album and the visual world of his graphic novel—a door slightly ajar to an expanding universe.

Le Diouck is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans music, illustration, visual storytelling, and stage performance. At the intersection of folktale, speculative fiction, and diasporic memory, he constructs worlds where science fiction, mythology, and identity quests intertwine. His music navigates between rock, afro, and baile funk, and is expressed primarily in Wolof, French, and English. In June 2025, he releases his debut album Grace Joke. Following that recording, he felt compelled to return to one of his first passions—illustration—which inspired the creation of Codex Cineris, a graphic novel that serves as the foundation for the hybrid performance presented at the Bourse de Commerce, blending embodiment and initiatory narrative.

Exclusive pages from Codex Cineris will be presented during the performance.

In 2008, artist and musician Bill Kouligas founded the music label PAN, whose artistic direction lies at the intersection of music and contemporary creation. For over 15 years, PAN has shaped today’s sonic production and championed artistic practices nourished by sound, continuously redefining the boundaries of experimentation.