De Markteen presents Loading … Casa, an exhibition curated by Salma Lahlou featuring Yoriyas Yassine Alaoui Ismaili, Zineb Andress Arraki, Aicha El Beloui, Hicham Lasri, Mostafa Maftah, Fatima Mazmouz, Anna Raimondo and Mohamed Tangi.
Casablanca was built upon 2 fundamental axes: commerce and immigration. When the French arrived in 1907, they found a simple town quite unlike the imperial cities of Fez, Meknes, Rabat or Marrakech with 20,000 inhabitants living in a small medina. The Casablanca “miracle” captivated a cosmopolitan population drawn to the promise of business and work opportunities. The city grew to 78,000 inhabitants in 1913 and, in eight years, the European population mushroomed from 570 to 31,000. It was in Casablanca that the French term “bidonville”, or shantytown, was coined, as informal reed huts with corrugated metal roofs were cobbled together to respond to an urgent housing shortage.
Complexes known as Hay Mohammadi housed thousands of Moroccans who knew only the practices, traditions and customs of their own homelands. This intermixing of populations and cultures on the edges of the city created the identity of Casablanca and Morocco that we know today.
Following the country’s independence in 1956, the city saw a reverse polarity in which the centre lost its status both as the historic heart of the city and its decisional power. Displacement became a means for Casablanca to reinvent itself. In one century, the city that boasts a population of over 4 million today, has undergone profound mutations.
The exhibition a simultaneous, non-linear experience where archival images, sound recordings, a short film, a monumental drawing and contemporary photography collide.
Loading… Casa is part of a programme of multidisciplinary events organised as part of Moussem Cities: Casablanca taking place in Brussels from 1st to 28th February.
Loading … Casa
2 – 28 February 2018
De Markteen
Oude Grannmarkt
5 Vieux Marché aux Grains
1000 Brussels
www.demarkten.be
Visit Moussem Cities: Casablanca website for further information.
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