Art_Africa_2016_03_

ARTAFRICA

Our biennale is going to be set up mainly in five public heritage sites; Koutoubia

Mosque, Palais Badi, Palais Bahia, Dar Si Said and the Menara Pavilion. This gesture

is to guarantee that our biennale is accessible to all. We do not want this to be

exclusive to any audiences. We also extended the duration of the biennale to nearly

three months to allow audiences from all over Morocco, and internationally, the

opportunity to visit Marrakech and attend the biennale. Additionally, we are hosting

a varied and in depth K-12 educational programme that will reach out to thousands

of students, and this demands free entry. As to your question about how this affects

the selection of the work, in my mind, the art market is subsidiary to the making of

art. I think we will see art that is created by artists who have minds of their own, who

are independent of the logic of the market.

Created in 2007, Awaln’Art is a collective of French-Moroccan artists who stage

public events in an attempt to publicly promote artistic practice. Awaln’Art

has been supported by both the local Ministry of Culture as well as foreign

institutions, such as the French Institute. This year they will collaborate with

the biennale. How important are these types of collaborations in developing

prolonged public interest in the arts and what room is available to strengthen

artistic and cultural ties in Northern Africa and the Middle East?

It is very important for this edition of the biennale to support – and be supported

• by local infrastructure and allow for the events to consolidate and anchor one
  another. Ultimately, the biennale is aiming to be a gateway for collaborations that
  are foremost Moroccan and then moving towards the surrounding regions, starting
  from within the vicinity towards Africa, West Asia and Europe.

In 2010 you joined the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museum-building project.

Strategically positioned, this will become the largest Guggenheim in the world.

It’s a telling move and one we’d like to know more about. It certainly suggests

that the current popularity of art in this region is more than a trend. To what

extent is this re-alignment reflective of the art markets sustained interest in

artistic production from the region?

MARRAKECH BIENNALE / IN CONVERSATION WITH REEM FADDA 8/9

FEATURE / MARRAKECH BIENNALE

ARTAFRICA