Visual artist, filmmaker, and writer Mohamed Sleiman Labat was born and raised in the Saharawi refugee camps in the Hamada desert, Algeria. A graduate of Batna University, Algeria, he returned to the camps following his studies, to support his family and community via his art and education. Mohamed's multidisciplinary arts practice investigates the political, cultural, social, and environmental issues that affect his Saharawi community and the world at large. His visual art, films, writings, and community-based art all take Saharawi life—past and present—as primary inspiration.
Mohamed's art practice includes documenting and sustaining the oral heritage of the Saharawi people. In 2015, with UK poet Sam Berkson , he co-authored Settled Wanderers, the Poetry of Western Sahara, the first collection of Saharawi poems to be translated into English. In 2016, Mohamed built Motif Art Studio in one of the camps, an ongoing creative hub for art creation and art education. He is also co-author (with Pekka Niskanen) of Nomadic Seeds, an artist book in English and Hassānīya, the oral language of the Saharawi.
For Mohamed, art is not only for pleasure: it gets us "to experience things in a way that helps us ask questions, solve problems, create abundance, team up with each other, learn from one another, and enjoy what we have been offered in this short journey we call life" (Motif Art Studio).
