Souvenances

Happy to participate in Souvenances, a fantastic collective exhibition where you can also enjoy artworks by Amina Azreg, Hendrik Beikirch, Nasreddine Bennacer, Karim barka, Roxane Daumas, Mouad El Bissaoui, Hajar El Moustaassime, Safae El Kadi, Hasnae El ouarga, Soumiya jalal, David Mesguich, Nèle, kouka ntadi, Hyacinthe Ouattara, Rosh, Mouna Saboni and TILT

Souvenances unveils the reflections of eighteen artists, who, taking turns, completed a residency in Marrakech to collectively unveil this narrative in a single voice. The exhibition will be presented from November 17, 2023 to February 28, 2024, at the French Institute of Marrakech in collaboration with the Montresso* Foundation and the Majaz project.

Between a place of memory and the memory of places, Souvenances takes root in the former building of the French Institute of Marrakech, inviting us to consider architecture as a shifting surface, a transcultural vector across time and space. Memory, territory, and transmission intertwine in a place that was initially constructed to house a military barracks during the protectorate, later becoming the Victor Hugo high school and its boarding school in the sixties, and finally hosting the library and language courses center of the French Institute created in 1986.

Functioning as both a link and a separation, the wall, in its materiality and semiotics, positions itself as an urban palimpsest, where each passage, from soldiers to schoolchildren, leaves its mark. In a mindset of crossing and traversal, this structure embodies a known metamorphosis. Invited to probe this particular place through their personal writings, the artists explore the various material and symbolic layers of the building as well as the reminiscences it evokes.

Through a multiplicity of mediums, artists from Morocco and beyond engage in a visual dialogue, creating suspended moments where the emanation and tension of memory find their continuity. They skillfully explore the play of perspectives, dismantling the layers of our collective memory, highlighting the dissimilarities and inconsistencies of contemporary mutations.

It is eighteen artists who immerse us in a genuine analysis of the cellular fibers of remembrance, articulating an emotional mapping through material, color, and texture. They sketch the beginnings of emotional reminiscences, creating works where the boundaries between the past and the future are delicately touched. From painting to drawing, through photography, sculpture, and installation, they weave a profound connection between the territory and its culture, exploring memories intimately intrinsic to this construction. In a variety of lines and gestures, combined with archives, texts, and images, Souvenances presents itself as an immersive installation, reconnecting the different narratives told around and through space.