Festival Remp'Arts d'Azemmour This past weekend, a friend and I travelled about an hour outside of Casablanca, to the City of Azemmour, where artists had taken over the medina. From the moment we stepped in the city walls, we were amazed. Men sitting outside the gates provided us with maps and a program guide, but we quickly stuck it in our back pocket and allowed ourselves to wander and be engulfed in awe at every turn. Graffiti artists as well as fine artists were featured, among many others, including local artists also participating in the event. It seemed no wall was safe from reinvention, and as we walked through the streets and down alleys, we saw artists working. As my friend and I walked, we began to ponder the effects this festival has on the community and city of Azemmour. There was evidence that the festival has been a yearly event since at least 2008 (this is the date of the earliest work that was still showing), and in a rather small city, with little to no tourist industry besides the festival, and what seemed to be not a wealthy foreign developed city, we wondered the effects the festival had on the views of art and artwork, the relevance of the artwork to the inhabitants of the city, and if the interaction with foreigners and foreign artists was the only international experience some of the city's citizens would ever experience. How does this limited, yet colorfully rich experience change the way young people view art, artists, and foreigners in their city? The question of relevance also came up- yes, there are graffiti and fine artists making great works for people to look at and see on walls of this city, but if its not relevant to the people that live there, if they can't read it because it is not written in Arabic, or if there's little to no interaction between the artist and the inhabitants, at what point does it become irrelevant? After doing a little digging, I found the website, and found that there is in fact a program with local musicians, workshops, and activities to participate in. Needless to say, this past Sunday was a Sunday well spent. There's something to be said about the idea of discovery; walking around and finding perfectly placed masterpieces in places where you least expect, rather than admiring them on a wall in a perfectly lit gallery: the excitement of the scavenger hunt within the reality of the city, turning the corner with heightened curiosity, being within something rather than a spectator, and actually being a participator in the creation of its beauty, instead of from the outside looking in.
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Laura KeeneyArtist. Educator. Student. Archives
August 2013
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