Photography and Food - Slideluck in Fez

Peace Corps worker Amoy Barnes

Want to see your photos on show? Then submit them to Slideluck Fez - a public slideshow and pot-luck meal to be held on April 6

The photographic work of 10 emerging and established Fez photographers and artists and 10 youth photographer students from the local Dar Chabab (youth center) will be on public display at Slideluck, an event at the ALIF Riad. The deadline is March 2 for submissions.

Peace Corps worker, Amoy Barnes, who is co-ordinating the local version of Slideluck, says that, "We are looking for creative, thought-provoking submissions, but are open to a variety of images."

Slideluck has been held in more than 75 cities around the world. It is run by a non profit organisation which is dedicated to building and strengthening community through food and art.

The idea is to bring together diverse groups of people, artwork, food, ideas and perspectives under one roof - with the aim of creating a unique and magical event.

Amoy Barnes, who comes from New York, knew about Slideluck. "I think, I believe and I know it will work very well in Fez," she says. She has been working with the local Dar Chabab, or youth centre, for the past two years, and is almost at the end of her stay in Morocco.

"Dar Chababs are youth centres are run by the government, in partnership with the Peace Corps," she explains. "They focus on offering life skills necessary for development, encouraging young people to be active citizens in today's economy."

She points out that, with a massive proportion of the Moroccan population being young, (29% are under 14), that unemployment is a significant and growing problem. "Young people need to understand various things to do with getting a job and work. To do that they need to have things like English language skills, computer skills and be able to write a resume and a cover letter."

"I have been working at a Dar Chabab at Merja, a suburb in the Ville Novelle," Amoy says. "It's in one of the outlying suburbs, with a lot of unfinished buildings and not much infra-structure. When I went there, I wanted to offer activities that would interest them. I found these kids are very creative. They love theatre, and did a lot of art. I introduced photography, because it forces them to really look at things; to critically analyse. I wanted them to understand not just to jump in front of a camera, but to understand the meaning of taking a picture - to create something and look at what it represents."

Amoy Barnes, right, with children from the Merja Dar Chabab

Amoy enlisted the help of local photographer Omar Chennafi, the co-ordinator of the ALC-ALIF Photography Club, who held workshops and classes in how to look at and analyse photos. He also took the children to a photographic exhibition held by the French Institute. "Omar got them to look at what photography is and how they could be creative with it," she says. "The kids had an outing in the medina with members of the ALC-ALIF Photography Club. All the kids got to use Omar's camera and another student's camera. Having 12 kids (from the Dar Chabab) in the Medina was an adventure for sure. Even I was surprised by how well it went."

Amoy says that above all, what she wanted to do was to encourage the children she was working with to "think for themselves, be active citizens. To ask how can you better yourself and your community?"

Photography, she feels, gives them exposure to the wider world. For this reason, Amoy thought holding a Slideluck event in Fez would be a good fit. "So the idea is that the kids are given 10 - 12 disposable cameras and their work is shown alongside emerging and established photographers."

She approached the American Language Center director David Amster, who agreed to sponsor Slideluck at the ALIF Riad.

As well as a slideshow, to be held at 4 PM, an essential part of the event is the pot-luck meal at 2 PM, where everyone attending brings a plate of food to share. "Food is probably the most ancient way of sharing. It brings communities together; it connects people, no matter what their background."

To find out more about Slideluck and how to submit your photos, CLICK HERE. The deadline for submissions is March 2. 

When: Sunday April 6 at 2 PM Pot-luck meal (bring a plate of food to share), 4 PM Slideshow
Where: ALIF Riad, 6 Derb Drissi, Fez. 0535624850. If you don't know the way, meet at 1.45 PM at the Batha Fountain
Info: amoybarnes@gmail.com 

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The Marrakech Hell's Angels ~ Guardian Photos.

The British The Guardian newspaper just published some interesting photographs of Marrakech women and motorbikes. Although the setup and execution of the photographs is contrived and highly stylised, they are worth a look

The Guardian reports that "British-Moroccan photographer Hassan Hajjaj has been out on the open road with Marrakech's bike gangs, who come prepared with polka dot veils, Nike djellabah and heart-shaped sunnies. Here's the best of his series Kesh Angels, on view at the Taymour Grahne gallery in New York City until 7 March".

See the full gallery of photos here:  The Guardian 

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An American perspective on Moroccan Arabic

Darija (Arabic: الدارجة‎), means "everyday/colloquial language"and is spoken by around 30 million people in Morocco. For visitors Darija may seem difficult at first, but more and more expats and students are studying Darija in preference to French

Darija shares the majority of its vocabulary with standard Arabic, but it also includes significant borrowings from Berber (Tamazight) as well as extensive borrowings from French, and to a lesser extent Castilian Spanish and even Italian.

Darija is spoken and to various extents mutually understood in the Maghreb countries, especially Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but can often be unintelligible to speakers of other Arabic dialects. Darija continues to evolve by integrating new French or English words, notably in technical fields, or by replacing old French and Spanish ones with Standard Arabic words within some circles.

Recently the Morocco World News ran an interesting article by an American on the Moroccan dialect.

Katrina Bushko writes...

I love the Arabic that is spoken here in Morocco, which is interesting because not very many people do. I remember when I was here over the summer that many of my friends did not like the darija class that we took for an hour a day in June. Some complained that it was too hard; others, that it was useless (indeed, native speakers of Egyptian or Levantine Arabic usually find it impossible to understand Moroccan Arabic).

But not me. I loved that class because I found it not only easier than Modern Standard Arabic (MSA, fusha), but also useful. The other dialects are closer to fusha, so if I were to go to Egypt or Syria or Lebanon, many people would be able to understand me if I spoke in MSA. In Morocco, however, there are few similarities with the classical Arabic, and so it is in a sense its very own language.

I will be the first to say that initially, darija is not a pretty language. It’s difficult to understand because of the lack of vowel pronunciation, the difference in verb conjugation, and the frequent use of the harsh consonant “?” that is absent in most other dialects. But after being in Morocco for a total of 3.5 months already (non-consecutive, of course), my ear has slowly been fine-tuning itself to understanding more and more of this language. And the more that I understand, the more beautiful it becomes to me.

I have grown to appreciate the way that Moroccans speak, as well. Last semester, I took an Egyptian Colloquial Arabic class that greatly improved my overall speaking skills. I noticed that the manner in which we were trained to speak is very different from the Moroccan style.

For example, the word (yaa-nee) is frequently used in Egyptian to indicate the common English word “like” (as in, the “like” that teenagers often use as a sentence filler); however, I have barely noticed this word being used in the Moroccan dialect. I recently asked my roommate what the Moroccan equivalent would be, and she said that it was (zaa-ma). And although they both have the same purpose, I hear (zaa-ma) used much less frequently than my Egyptian Colloquial professor used (yaa-nee). Of course, this is only one of the many, many differences between the dialects.

As for my own speaking and understanding, I think that by now I have a basic grasp of Moroccan Arabic. I can get around pretty easily by myself without relying on French (indeed, my grasp of French pretty much boils down to, je ne comprends pas français.). I can order food, buy bus or train tickets, converse with hostel owners about myself and what I would like from the hostel, among other vital things that are important to know for everyday life (for example, whenever I’m asked if I know Arabic, my automatic response is (shwii-ya), or, “a little”). As for understanding, I can understand a lot of what shopkeepers say to me regarding price and their wares, and I can pick up bits and pieces of everyday conversation. But the most useful tool in understanding something in a language that you don’t know well is body language.

There have been many a time where I have had to rely mostly on the point of a finger or a gesture of a hand. For example, when my friends and I went to Meknes and stayed in a hostel deep in the heart of the medina, I had to continuously stop and ask for directions to Bab Mansour, a well-known gate that faces the main entrance to the souq. In order to understand what these temporary guides were saying, I had to piece together my knowledge of darija with their hand movements.

The great thing about asking for directions is that it is universal to respond with hand motions, meaning that when someone says that you must turn left, they usually give you a signal pointing left. So as I watched their body language and listened carefully for words I knew (i.e. take the SECOND left after the green door, not the first), I was able to lead us out of the maze that is the medina of Meknes.

Although I will be in Morocco for four months this semester, I know that I will not be going back to the United States fluent in either fusha or darija. I will, however, become more familiar with the dialect here and (inshallah) be able to hold some type of conversation for a good amount of time. And of course, having a Moroccan boyfriend was a great advantage in this area.

Katrina Bushko

Katrina Bushko is a senior at Princeton University majoring in Political Philosophy with minors in Arabic and Near Eastern Studies. Her love for Morocco came about in the summer 2012, when she attended the ARANAS program at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.

Reprinted from Morocco World News with permission.

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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

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The Cervantes Theatre in Tangiers ~ Can it be Restored?

The Cervantes Theatre in Tangier is considered to be a masterpiece of Spanish architecture - sadly, a hundred years after it was built it is in danger of crumbling into nothing.

The cost of restoration and the question of who should pay for it has left the building in limbo. Nearby the port of Tanger is getting a facelift and a new marina, but the historical building seems forgotten.

The theatre is accessible via the Avenue Pasteur and Rue du Prince Moulay Abdallah

Yet, there are those who value its history. According to historian Bernabe Lopez Garcia the city was very different back in 1919. "The population was around 40,000," he says, "with around 7,000 Spaniards, 5000 Jews and 26,000 Muslims."

The history of the building dates back to 1911, when a rich Spanish merchant, Manuel Pena, decided to erect the theatre and dedicate it to his wife Esperanza Orellana, who was a passionate theatre lover.

The theatre opened in December 1913 and its history is closely linked to the Spanish presence.in Tangier.  During the Second World War, Franco's troops who occupied the city considered the building to be too modernist and wanted to convert the theatre in the neoclassical style fascist. The building was saved that fate. "Fortunately, the fascists did not have the money," said Mr. Lopez Garcia.

In December 2013, Lopez Garcia staged a major exhibition devoted to the centenary of the theatre. A celebration was subdued because as observers commented, a monument, reduced to a wreck, is painful to see.

Photo credit: Fadel Senna

Outside the yellow and blue ceramic decorating its facade is fading. And the inside, that once saw magnificent performances, is a wreck beneath a dilapidated ceiling - the remaining seats are covered with dust.

"Its current state is a bit pathetic, to be honest," admits Cecilia Fernandez Suzor, director of the Cervantes Institute in Tangier. "It looks like a shadow of a theater " sighs the writer Rachid Taferssiti, president of the Al Boughaz Association for the Safeguarding of Tangier. "I find it sad that a multicultural space like that is degraded as it is."


The theatre was the venue for the famous tenor Antonio Caruso, singer Patti Adeline and many Flamenco performances early last century. "My father played roles there," Rachid Taferssiti says, "The Al Hilal troupe, composed of Moroccans from Tangier, gave a noted performance of Othello in the theatre in 1929."

Closed since 1974, the Cervantes Theatre has long been praised as symbolic of Morocco, while remaining the property of Spain. The two countries still do not reach an agreement for its restoration.

" I think that the Spanish government would like nothing better than to restore it, but with the current crisis it is impossible to approach the subject ," says Ms. Fernandez Suzor, who said that" if we want to do it it would costs 1913 million - hello!"

Besides the cost, estimated at €4-5 million, the location in a run down neighbourhood is a weak point. "But there are some examples everywhere, where with the restoration of a cultural site, the environment transforms itself," argues the director of the Cervantes Institute, suggesting that the theatre could be reborn" as training center for crafts scene . "

"The city has a lot of changes to make, but should advance its share of the cost," Mr. Taferssiti claims. "We have our role to play, but the solution belongs to the Spanish and Moroccan governments."

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Mixed Results For Moroccan Tourism in 2013

At first glance 2013 appeared to be a great year for tourism in Morocco, with large numbers of visitors. The down side, according to to Ministry of Tourism, is that the visitors spent considerably less money than in the previous year

The same observation is made by riad owners in Fez. Sue Bail, from Riad Rcif, says "There is a huge difference now. Before visitors would return to the riad with bags of shopping. These day, however, they appear to be limiting themselves to cultural rather than shopping trips."

Many more tourists - spending less

Morocco welcomed 10.5 million tourists last year, a gain of seven percent, but the money they spent in a country whose cash-strapped government relies on them actually dipped.

Tourism Minister Lahcen Haddad confirmed the trend when speaking to the media recently. "The number of tourists who went to Morocco in 2013 reached 10,046,000," he said on Friday.

Ministry figures showed that revenues from non-resident tourists eased 0.5 percent to 57.5 billion dirhams (5.1 billion euros/6.9 billion).

Morocco was badly affected by the financial crisis in Europe, its top trade partner, aggravating the economic challenges facing the government of Islamist premier Abdelilah Benkirane.

The rise in arrivals last year was due, notably, to an influx of tourists from Italy, Germany and England, with the number of holidaymakers from those countries rising by between 12 and 15 percent.

By contrast, tourist arrivals from France and Spain grew by just four percent.

Marrakech and the coastal city of Agadir were the most popular destinations, receiving two-thirds of the visitors.

Tourism is the second-largest economic sector in Morocco. It accounts for around eight percent of GDP, employing some 500,000 people, and the government hopes to see the number of visitors rise to 20 million by 2022.

Haddad said in November that the government planned to levy a small tax on all flights out of the country, which he said would be used to promote it as a holiday destination.


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The 19th Fez Festival of Andalusian Music ~ February 21 - March 1 2014

The 19th Fez Festival of Andalusian music will be held from 21 February to 1 March under the banner "Heritage, Authenticity and Renewal."

The annual project is produced by the urban district council of Fez. It is a great opportunity to experience wonderful Andalusian music performed by top orchestras and musical groups.

This year the organisers promise that... " the sumptuous riads and other mythical places of our spiritual capital will vibrate to the rhythms and sounds of the great masters of Andalusian music from Fez, Meknes, Rabat, Salé, Casablanca, Tangier and Tetouan."

The opening performance is expected to be given by the Balabile orchestra fro Rabat, under the direction of Abdelkrim Aamarti and the Assala group from Meknes, led by artist Mohamed Ouarti.

To close the festival the organizers have scheduled the famous troupe Brihi Fez, led by Anas El Attar, and the Institute of Tetouan edited by Mehdi Chaâchouâ.

The Brihi Ensemble

Brihi Fez are a group not to be missed. This famous Moroccan Andalusian group is named after the musician and bandleader Muhammad al-Brihi. When al-Brihi died in 1940, `Abd al-Karim al-Rayyis took over leadership of al-Brihi’s group and named it after him. Under `Abd al-Karim the Brihi Ensemble became one of the most famous groups in Morocco. After his death in 1996 the present leader of the group, Anis al-`Attar, took over and he continues to lead one of the most important and active ensembles who perform Moroccan Andalusian music.

Brihi Ensemble - photos Philip Murphy

The Brihi Ensemble's contributions normally include a wide variety of poems set to Andalusian rhythms and melodies. They are also known for their playing of rare pieces including works such as the complete first movement from a suite of songs called Nubat Raml al-Maya. According to one of the ensemble’s lute players, Muhammad al-Farris, all their performances are considered samā` wa madīḥ because the poetry focuses on praising the Prophet Muhammad, and prayers to God.

Other Festival Events

In addition to the musical side, the event includes art exhibitions and writings on Andalusian music, books that focus on different historical and artistic aspects and debates, led by professors and specialists in the area. Several conferences are also on the menu, such as those dealing with the history and masters of Andalusian music in Fez. For Fez Council, these activities aim to perpetuate this highly authentic musical art that came as a result of mutual influences between the Maghreb, Andalusia and the East. The festival hopes to consolidate Andalusian music's place among the list of Moroccan heritage events.

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What’s on the Menu? Tagine or Goats Head Soup? ~ Disques Gam, Vinyl Record shop, Casablanca

Speciality music shops come and go so it is a relief to confirm that Disques Gam, one of the top five vinyl shops in the world, is still up and running in Casablanca. Our man on the spot, John Horniblow, went in search of a rare copy of Goats Head Soup...

Located an a corner of Blvd de Paris, a busy cross town transit street, is the unique Disques Gam. Like so much of Casablanca’s inner city, it is an illusive reminder of Casablanca’s former prestige and grandeur as France’s pearl of the orient; present, faded and obscured by the layers of grey grit. In fact if you were walking along street you’d be most likely walk past it and miss it if weren’t looking for it. Its part of the older and intriguing side of Casablanca, where what’s secreted away and hidden from the street view is often it’s most interesting, mysterious and magical.

Stepping off the street and into a dimly lit interior you enter an extravaganza of music records, vinyl records. Larger than life portrait paintings Egyptian singing legends Umm Kulthum and Abdel Halim Hafez gaze over the shop from the back corner facing the street. This is no ordinary records shop its like an epicentre for western music greats and their Arab and Moroccan counterparts.

Original promotional posters for Fab Four records jostle for recognition in the clutter of an eclectic display of albums covers of many of the most recognisable names and records in rock and roll history, strung from the ceiling like mobiles, and across all the wallspace, facings and shelves. Ancient reel to reels; Akai GX400 D and TEAC machines rest on glass counter tops of the display cabinets bursting with records and deep stacks of vinyl in wall bins. For record and music aficionados Disques Gam is instantly apparent as collection of some of the most influential and lauded music artists and bands of the pre-digital golden age of rock and roll, funk, disco, jazz, blues, Arabic, Moroccan and French music. An almost perfectly preserved audio library or an unassuming homage to the era of the radio days of the phonogram.

I am the only person in shop but my presence barely raises the attention of the shops proprietor, the 70 year old Mn. Gam Boujemaa, who sits in his office at the back. He looks up through an open window, notices me and turns back to his interest. “There’s no hard sell here”, I think to myself as I begin to take in the enormity and depth of this collection. I am deeply impressed. 45’s of Bollywood films of the 1970’s, African stars like Fela Kuti, Italian pop singers Mina and Lucio Battisti, all the French crooners, Donna Summer, Henry Belfonte, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Isaac Hayes, The Rolling Stones, George Benson, Stevie Wonder, Lynyard Skynyrd, Fatts Domino, Bob Marley, Toots Maytal, James Brown, Steve Miller, Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, The Doors, Santana, Frank Zappa, The Temptations, Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson et al.

Music from A to Z - Allman Brothers to Frank Zappa

“Can I take some photos?” I call up to Mn. Gam. He waves his left arm in my general direction and calls back “yes”. I size and take a number of shots, letting my eyes wander for some time and before thumbing through some of the bins.

There are lots of records and artists I don’t recognize or know from the Arab world and Mn Gam has now come downstairs. “What do you want? I said you could take photos but you have been here for ten minutes.”
“I have read about your shop and I wanted to take a look.”
“Ah yes, some foreigners like my shop but not many. Where are you from? “
“I am Beidawi, I live here in Casablanca”, my usual line to break the ice that sometimes solicits a laugh or smile.

nas el ghiwane - on vinyl ! 

Mn Gam warms up when I ask him about the portraits on the wall and he begins to describe Egypt's very best artists Umm Kulthum, and Abdel Halim Hafez, then other Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Sayed Darwish before adding Morocco’s recording stars.

There are between 30,000 to 40,000 albums in Mn. Gam’s shop. The racks are stacked deep with 45rpm singles, 33rpm albums in their cardboard slips some faded and dusty without plastic sleeves but with most of the vinyl in mint condition with little signs of mould or dust. There’s an area of 5,000 singles of the best French singers and bands of the 60’s 70’s and early 80’s. Conspicuously there are no CD’s but rather remnants of what Mn. Gam laments sourly as investment of 20,000,000 Moroccan francs (200,000 MAD), a wall of pre-recorded cassettes.

Just like his fading emporium Mn. Gam was once at the centre of the Moroccan rock and roll scene setup his own record label, Disques Gam in 1970. Recording and distributing successful and popular Moroccan bands Nas El Ghiwane and Jil Jilala (“The Rolling Stones of Africa”), Abdou El Omari, Naimah Samih ( the “Moroccan Edith Piaf “) and Mohamed Bajaddoub. All names that were the pioneering generation of Moroccan musicians who tried to move the Moroccan song into the realm of contemporary music while keeping their original rhythms and roots.

Jil Jilala -“Laayoun Aïnya,” 

Jil Jilala, whose namesake is a Sufi Muslim brotherhood, released their most important record, “Laayoun Aïnya,” in 1976 coinciding with a government backed march of Moroccans toward the Spanish territory of the Western Sahara. The jacket is conspicuously green with red figures of some of the 350,000 Moroccans who took part in the “Green March” in an affirmation Moroccan independence and sovereignty. The time was post-colonial Morocco and Casablanca was enjoying its cosmopolitan Atlantic orientation taking on new influences from Europe and across the Atlantic. Mn. Gam’s business was booming with now a long departed clientele of French expats and middle class Jews who once lived in the surrounding quartiers, eager to discover and buy the charting music of the day. These are part of the rich and buried history which he recalls as he fondly describes Disques Gam, an “Ali Baba’s cave of musical treasures”.

He reaches under the counter for an old photograph of a dapper young man in white suit posing in front of stack of turntables in cartons, and a rack of Arab pop records, “ what do you think? Harry Belfonte?” he remarks with a smile on his face as he reflects momentarily. “These are just memories and dreams of better days” he recounts with a melancholy sigh. The smile then slips from his face and Mn. Gam laments sadly, “Moroccans don’t like to pay for music. What can I do? I am told I am in the top five records stores in the world with collections like mine.”

There are no other customers in the shop, no music aficionados thumbing through the crates and stacks of what is a brilliant collectors archive, a celebration of the lost art of album covers and vinyl records; Casablanca is clearly not a centre in resurgence of people seeking the pressed vibes in vinyl that other cities are enjoying around the world today.

Mn. Gam then guffly shakes me up from my thoughts and comments on what a great collection of records he has as he cuts to the business, “What have I got to gain from talking to you? What are you a journalist? Don’t you have money to buy a record?”. Its close to lunch time and he has the door keys in his hand. It obvious he wants to close up.

“What’s on the menu Tagine or Goats Head Soup?” I ponder silently with a smile. The first thing that had caught my eye when I had stepped into the store was unmistakable un-named yellow record sleeve. A print of youthful Mike Jagger’s head, obscure and almost ghost like, wrapped and stretched upwards from his chin in cellophane or possibly nylon or light muslin cloth; fighting for space on the bottom shelf of the glass counter display cabinet amongst Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, and The Beatles and others. Forget lunch! I want the yellow album, one of The Rolling Stones great records before they slipped into the decadence of rock star excess. “Can I get a Goats Head Soup?” I asked pointing to album in the cabinet, “how much do you want for it?”, and pulled out my wallet. Mn. Gam named a good but reasonable price and as he rummaged for a plastic carry bag I had that knowing feel that I’d be back for more.

Gotcha! - Goats Head Soup - a rare find

(The only other time I have had a taste of the sounds of 1970’s rock’n’roll in Morocco was an encounter with David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, nonchalantly spinning on a turntable in the junk souk of Hay Hassani … but that’s another story.)

Jil Jilala – Laayoun Ayniya video

Disques Gam, 99 Blvd de Paris. Casablanca

Photos and story: John Horniblow, for The View from Fez

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Exposé Artisanal - Linking Up With the Artisans of the Fez Medina

Exposé Artisanal is an exciting initiative that aims to create opportunities to meet and speak with artisans in the Fez Medina. Next Monday February 3 at 6 pm an event will be held at ALIF Riad to present the project

Too often visitors to the Medina only glimpse the artisans who create the arts and crafts for which Fez is justifiably famous. Too few have a chance to sit and exchange stories. Now that is about to change and a window will be opened onto the real personalities behind the beautiful objects they produce.

Exposé Artisanal intends to bring the artisans into direct contact with writers, researchers and journalists and to provide translators. For those involved there will be workshops on blogging and storytelling so that the most can be made of the material they gather. A pop-up museum, exhibition, and a book is planned.  A blog - Artisans of Morocco - is already up and running. Exposé Artisanal offers a unique opportunity to foster a new appreciation of the talent and traditions behind the crafts people of Fez and celebrate the influence of their unique heritage on the wider world. Thejournalists, researchers and artists material has the opportunity to be on a blog, in the pop up museum and or in the final book on the artisans of Fez. By sitting with an artisan and documenting their story they are contributing to the wider community that supports the Fassi crafts.

 Jess Stephens

The driving force behind Exposé Artisanal is the dynamic Jess Stephens who heads up Culture Vultures. As she tells it, "the artisans are wonderful characters and their stories are as interesting as the works they produce."  As she talks her eyes light up and her passion for the project is obvious. 'Even though there are between thirty and forty thousand artisans working in traditional trades and crafts in the Medina, many of the traditions are in danger of being lost - the wooden bucket makers are rare now, as are the comb makers and the last weaver of grass mats has gone. But through this work we will be able to celebrate the personalities of traditional artisans."

Mohammed Saili is the last of the comb makers on Derb Mechatin

The project is not a one way experience. Every one of the artisans involved will be part of the "give back" programme which will see them receive copies of all photographs, publications and documentation.

Another facet of the project is to inspire young Moroccans not only to appreciate the traditional crafts of Fez, but to get involved.

Fund raising for Exposé Artisanal is a crowd funding exercise and although just launched, is off to a great start. You can find out more and donate by visiting: Exposé Artisanal    

If you are in Fez, then this coming Monday there is a buzz event at the Alif Riad at 6pm. You are most welcome to attend.

When: Monday February 3 at 6 PM
Where: ALIF Riad, 6 Derb Drissi, Fez. (If you don’t know where it is, meet at Batha Fountain at 5.50 PM.)


Links

Donations:             Donate here
Culture Vultures:  Support the Fassi Artisans
Facebook:              Artisans of Morocco 

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