The 5th Marrakech Biennale ~ February 26 - March 2, 2014

Higher Atlas, by Hadley Maxwell - SKIES OF THE HEART 2012, photo by Alia Radman

The Marrakech Biennale is a festival that was founded in 2001 with the mission to build bridges between the cultures through the arts. One of the main features of the festival is its aim to inspire outstanding artists from all over the world to create work that responds to the the magical environment of Marrakech

The Marrakech Biennale is a celebration of creativity in a city that has been the focus of artistic exploration for centuries; a gathering of arts enthusiasts who organize stimulating conferences, interactive events and world-class exhibitions.

5TH MARRAKECH BIENNALE - Where are we now?

For the fifth edition of Marrakech Biennale it was decided to set up a dialogue between four disciplines: visual arts, cinema and video, literature and the performing arts. The dialogue will attempt to answer the question - where are we now?

Curators from each discipline consider the theme, "Where are we now?" and respond through their own perspectives inviting participants to bring individual frameworks into this question.

The curator Hicham Khalidi will create the main exhibition where the vast majority of the artworks will be site specific, produced in and inspired by the context of Marrakech. The artworks will housed in several venues including the 16th century Palais Badii, the Dar Si Said, which houses the Museum of Moroccan Arts, and the former Bank Al Maghrib in the middle of the Jemaa El Fna square, which remains the spiritual heart of Marrakech and primary site of transmission of its intangible heritage.

Led by the writer and theater author Driss Ksikès, the Literary discipline will promote access to public space through a series of roundtables as well as performance lectures, connecting performing art and literature, but also through comics as an articulation between visual art and literature. These events will take place in the Royal Theatre, a contested theatre and opera house built in the late 70s yet never used as such. The exhibition will also open onto the most public space of the city as it merges with the visual art exhibition in the main square Jemaa El Fna.

Performing Arts is organized by Khalid Tamer, the founder of Alwaln'art, the public space festival in Marrakech.  He will create a circulation that reimagines the relationships of public space between several venues of the Biennale, connecting the two areas where the Biennale will take place: the more traditional space of the Medina and the modern area of Gueliz, the first area built outside of the Medina fortification starting in 1913. The main purpose of this circulation in the public space is to invite the immediate and spontaneous audience to participate in the Biennale by interconnecting the main venues.

Cinema and Video will consider contemporary creations from North Africa in dialogue with other regions, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. With the participation of the founder of the festival of video installation Casaprojecta, Jamal Abdenassar, video installation as a hyphen between film, visual art, and performing art will be a strong part of this edition.

In addition the Biennale Fringe is creating pop-up projects everywhere in the city during Biennale.

For tickets and more information visit the Biennale site

SHARE THIS!