Yto Barrada is a Franco-Moroccan multimedia visual artist known for her compelling work in photography, film, textiles, and sculpture. Her diverse body of work explores themes such as the cyclical nature of modernisation and decay, as evidenced by her exploration of the palm tree symbol in marketing campaigns for "contemporary" Morocco. 

Barrada's exhibitions, such as "Bad Color Combos," showcase her multidisciplinary approach, incorporating elements like film, textiles, and sculpture to delve into themes of time's acceleration and deceleration, the craftsmanship of natural dyes, and our attempts to control nature. This exhibition, and others like it, demonstrate Barrada's interest in combining abstract compositions with organic motifs, challenging exclusionary mechanisms of modernism and serving as metaphors for current global crises. Her work maintains a strong socio-political focus, as seen in her sculpture "Tangier Island Wall," which conceptualizes the story of an island community's struggle with rising sea levels and their disbelief in climate change .

Barrada's extensive exhibition history includes solo shows at significant venues such as the Neuberger Museum of Art and The Pace Gallery in New York, the Barbican Centre in London, and the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. Her work has been recognized with several awards, including the Soros Arts Fellowship in 2023 and the Roy R. Neuberger Prize in 2019 .

Her commitment to addressing complex cultural phenomena, personal histories, and natural processes through her art is evident across her projects. Barrada's unique voice in contemporary art is praised for its ability to critique modernism while telling very personal stories and highlighting the importance of knowledge and experience transfer .