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A poetical and philosophical cartography artwork for the Biennale of Casablanca


Date:
25 November 2020
Year :
2014
Location :
BIC-Biennale International of Casablanca

The founder and curator of the Casablanca Biennale, Mostapha Romli, and the V. Contemporary Gallery in Paris, asked us to participate in the BIC-Casablanca Biennale, and to create an artwork that will be : first exhibited at the Biennale, and then installed permanently on the wall of the city.

The project is thought of as a large poetical and philosophical map of Casablanca. It is composed of the monumental inscription of a poem by Ahmed Bouanani.

“MON PAYS”

Vois tu?
Nous avons d’abord bâti dans le sable,
Le vent a emporté le sable.
Puis nous avons bâti dans le roc,
La foudre a brisé le roc.
Il faut maintenant qu’on pense sérieusement
à bâtir dans l’homme

***

“MY COUNTRY”

See?
First we built in the sand,
The wind blew the sand away.
Then we built in the rock,
Lightning shattered the rock.
Now we have to seriously think
to be built in the human

***

The large text is followed by quotes written in Arab, French and English by philosophers like  Averroès, an anonymous iranien of the  Xth century, Bertolt Brecht, le Roi Ludwig de Bavière, Abdelmajid Benjelloun, Bergson, Confucius, Mahmoud Darwich, Gilles Deleuze, Erasme, Gandhi, Mohammed Khaïr Eddine, Faulkner, Martin Luther King, Lao Tseu, Abdelkébir Khatibi, Paul Klee, Carl von Linné,  Abdellatif Laâbi, Nietzsche,Picasso, Rabelais Jaläl ud Rumi,  Jean Paul Sartre, Oscar Wilde, Wittgenstein.

The artwork will be hand painted with Fès Blue on local white ceramics by artist Françoise Schein and local artisans at the Ifitry Residence in Essaouira and transported at the Biennale of Casablanca.

PARTNERS AND SUPPORT

V Contemporary Gallery, Paris
Fondation Ifitry

SPONSORS

Biennale Internationale d’Art Contemporain de Casablanca
Private donors
CAC- Centre d’Art Contemporain Ifitry

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