Tanger Tanger

An aMAZElab project

FLYER

Concept: Gianmaria Conti
Artistic director: Claudia Zanfi

23/24/25 May 2008 Triennial

A study of the contemporary city and its cultures needs moments of dialogue and reflection on a range of existing identities. Having long worked on contemporary geographies, aMAZElab (www.amaze.it) will take part at inCONTEMPORANEA #2 with its new cultural project Tanger, Tanger.

Continuing with its study of the civilisations to be found around the Mediterranean coast, and following the previous projects from Cyprus Day and Re-Thinking Beirut, the aMAZElab association proposes an investigation of the Morocco culture, focusing particularly on the city of Tangier, with its constant flows and exchanges of people and goods. Special attention is given to the project founded by the artist Yto Barrada, who has now reopened an old ‘30s cinema, after a long renovation period, in the Grand Socco Square – the heart of Tangier – near the Medina and the city’s Old Markets. The artist’s project, as well as the architectural restoration of the building and its internal design, includes daily screenings of art films, a video archive, as well as a small public library.

For the Milano Triennale Museum, four different artistic events have been created especially for the occasion:
- a wallpaper: a wall installation of images and words by artists and authors from Morocco, providing a sort of cultural map of the city.
- a selection of films from the Cinemathèque de Tanger. The programme includes the presentation of the entire project set up in Tangier, with the projection of films and video, as well as other visual materials on Mediterranean cultures, selected in collaboration with the Cinemathèque de Tanger by Yto Barrada. The video projection will be held in an installation which gives a taste of real cinema.
- the presentation of Nejma, Morocco’s only arts and literary review, which brings together stories, poems, drawings and photographs published in the various languages spoken to this day in Tangier (Arabic, English, French and Spanish).
- Lastly, on Saturday 24th May at 8.30pm there will be a music performance featuring
Aziz Riahi Ensamble of both traditional and contemporary Moroccan sounds to accompany the evening. In order to appreciate the music and sounds of this culture to the full, it will be accompanied by readings, in Arabic, of extracts taken from the works of Tangier’s most prominent writers (Tahar Ben Jelloun, Mohamed Choukri, Mohammed Mrabet, Paul Bowles, Nejma and others…), under the direction of Rachele Borghi (professor and Arabic specialist at the Cà Foscari University, Venice).
Refreshments based on Moroccan food will be provided.