Berrechid 81 :
A look back at a collective experience
at the edge of art and
psychiatry

A Public Programme by Abdeslam Ziou Ziou

31 May – 5 June 2021

Group photography in front of Dr Ziou Ziou Abdellah’s service accommodation in Berrechid. June 1981. Archives Dr Ziou Ziou

At the end of a 6-month research residency, Abdeslam Ziou Ziou developped a week-long programme, in June 2021, 40 years after the “Moussem” of Berrechid.
The “Moussem” brought together artists, patients, doctors, hospital staff and the public, between the 20th and the 30th of May 1981, on the initiative of his father, Doctor Abdellah Ziou Ziou.
Abdeslam Ziou Ziou originated his program organically, as his fieldwork, discussions and transcribed interviews, annotated photographs and a rich and diverse bibliography progressed. He brought forward this collective endeavor to resist normative standards and paid tribute to the individualities who formed it.

A “dérive”, through
Casablanca, history and
minds

A Public Programme by Bik Van der Pol
Learning together: November 2021
School of Walking: November 2022

© Bik Van der Pol

Learning together
In November 2021, during the first part of their research residency in Casablanca, artists Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol, working together as Bik van der Pol since 1995, explored the city and encountered its architecture, silent history, ambient noise and inhabitants. Entering into a dialogue with the public space and making it and bringing awareness to its past and potentialities is the common thread of their “dérive”.
Throughout the month, meetings and discussions took place with various cultural actors, including Bert Flint, Mamma Group/Lahbib El Moumni, Mohamed Rachdi, Kenza Sefrioui, Sabrina Kamili, Florence Darsi, Maud Houssais, Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa, Maria Karim, Mohamed Jibril, Mehdi Azdem, Eric Van Hove and Said Guiha.

Integration

A Public Programme by Céline Condorelli
Artist Talk: May 2022
Lecture Series: November 2022

© Céline Condorelli

In keeping with the principles that underpin her practice and well developed methodologies, Céline Condorelli used her residency at ThinkArt to expand upon her research on the notion of labour. This idea is of central importance to the artist, who makes the concept of work visible in the exhibition space, by looking beyond traditional hierarchies. Condorelli uses strategies that challenge discriminations linked to the status of workers, objects and audiences, and employs the exhibition space as a social space. Here, art is understood as an activity, a tool and an object; it becomes one element among others. For School of Casablanca, the artist explored rural carpets from the High Atlas Mountain region to restore their position to that of a sophisticated practice of abstraction carried out by women.

From the shape of a letter, to the word, to the sentence, to the page,
to the city

A Public Programme by Manuel Raeder
Artist Talk and Screening/Live performance: June 2022
Workshop and Walk Series: October 2022

© Studio Manuel Raeder

Manuel Raeder is a multidisciplinary designer known for painting murals in the 1990s. His practice is strongly defined by the idea that art and design should be accessible and available in public spaces. How are these public spaces taken over by the inhabitants to respond to their needs? How are the sites adapted for purposes not initially intended? Who are the individuals who appropriate these spaces?
The first part of his research residency revealed a need to set up encounters with other artists without a predefined agenda, other than the desire to forge connections around each other’s creative practices. The idea to have discussions over meals came out of this as well as encounters which encompassed the element of generosity.

Maghreb Art: A Patrimonial Counter Model?

A Public Programme by Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa
Presentation of the research methodology to the curators and residents of School of Casablanca: April 2022
Workshop and Study Day: November 2022

© Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa

Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa proposed to interrogate Maghreb Art -a cultural magazine consisting of only three issues published in 1965, 1966 and 1969, jointly directed by the Dutch anthropologist and collector Bert Flint and the Casablanca Art School- through a plurality of voices and practices embodied by the magazine’s main theorists and artists with a view to understanding the magazine’s role in the structuring of a new field of knowledge between artistic and pedagogical experimentation, anthropology, material culture and art history, and to question, among other things, its critical legacy. She invited Gilles Aubry and Laura U.Marks to contribute to her research.

Workshop and Study Day

On November 5 and 6, Aubry led a workshop with students from L’École Supérieure des beaux-arts de Casablanca. Participants were invited to engage with the contents of Maghreb Art to produce short sound pieces, to conceive a sort of radio version of the magazine, or the soundtrack of an imaginary film.
On November 10, Lakrissa conducted a study day featuring interventions by Aubry and Marks, as well as the presentation of the results of Aubry’s sound workshop with students from L’École Supérieure des beaux-arts de Casablanca, followed by a conversation with the public.

Corresponding with:

Towards a documentation centre for self-organised artistic, activist and feminist initiatives

A Public Programme by Peter Spillmann
Collective research workshops and public meetings: December 2022

© Peter Spillmann

A mapping of the self-organised, activist and feminist artistic initiatives in Morocco that have been formed and active since independence in 1956 was developed together with a group of experts. Themes and discourses derived from the historical experiment of the Casa School between 1962 and 1974, such as the development of new art forms, art in public space and its mediation, a new pedagogy, the decolonisation of art history as well as emancipation and self-organisation, formed the conceptual orientation linesP
Peter Spillmann invited Amina Belghiti to organise a three-month independent and autonomous research residency with Salma Lahlou and Alia Lahlou. Further formats and working methods for a future archive will be developed, tested and explored together with invited artists during this residency.