Excursion: School of Casablanca

This ten day excursion followed the heritage of Moroccan weaving, abstraction as women’s work, the relationship between textiles and architecture, and the relationship between arts and crafts, as well as the exhibitions and public programmes of the exhibition project of the same name in Casablanca, which is a cooperation with KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Sharjah Art Foundation, Goethe-Institut Marokko, ThinkArt and Zamân Books & Curating.

The starting point of the excursion is the former art school of Casablanca and the project "School of Casablanca", which is related to it. The project offers the opportunity to explore the anti-colonial history of the art school which became an important centre to re-think the relationship between art and craft, and to rewrite a Moroccan art history that had an impact on the entire region. In this pedagogical experiment, interdisciplinary artists and researchers renewed the idea of art education whereby artists should be educated not as passive witnesses but agent with the potential to provoke cultural visions for a more self conscious generation. In keeping with the legacy of the School of Casablanca, the seminar was accompanied by first hand experiences with this excursion and a series of material workshops. We followed thefootsteps of the school in pursuing abstraction as a language for action, and re-appropriating it back from the notion of it being a XXth century western painterly invention, as is beautifully explained in a passage of a text by Toni Maraini which explains that, in the school: “A lot of attention was given to the signs and symbols, their aesthetic, iconography and history within the Afro-Mediterranean space. (…) A beautiful rural traditional carpet — the work of a woman artisan from the Houz region — was hung on the wall of the painting class to inspire students. The carpet was friendlily named ‘Klee’s carpet.”

The excursion took place from November 10-20 with 15 students from different departments of HfG Karlsruhe, starting in Casablanca, where we attended the opening programme of the School of Casablanca exhibition, and visited Céline Condorelli’s installation. From there we travelled to the Marrakesh region, to visit carpet markets and dealers as well as various specialized museums, in different locations and workshops connected to the local textile manufactories. During the excursion we documented, researched and analyzed. Based on this research, designs for textile objects, performances or other creative forms of engagement will be developed for the presentation at IFA Berlin in February 2024.

https://schoolofcasablanca.com/

Many thanks to Rabii Alouani Bibi who offered us special insights into his world of carpets.