MAMMA PODCAST #01 

"The Integrations," the Faraoui Case - De Mazières and the artists from the Casablanca group.

Conversation with : Maud Houssais and Riad Kherdeen

📅 Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Maud Houssais

🎤 She is a researcher and independent exhibition curator based in Rabat, Morocco. She is the co-founder of the ARAV platform (Visual Arts Research Workshop). Her research focuses on the question of how artists shaped the city during the 1960s-1970s. She is particularly interested in the modalities and functions of collaborations within the artistic community, involving visual artists, architects, filmmakers, and writers.

Currently, she is working on co-directing a forthcoming book on the Casablanca School of Fine Arts under the direction of Farid Belkahia, to be published by Zaman Books & Curating. Her recent projects include the research and exhibition program Bauhaus imaginista. Her articles have been published in several journals and publications, including the collective work "Sismographie des luttes: Répliques" (Nouvelles Éditions Place, 2021) and the online magazine "The Sole Adventurer" (upcoming).

RIAD KHERDEEN

🎤 He is a doctoral student in Art History at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in global modernisms, particularly in the West Asia and North Africa region, as well as critical theory, psychoanalytic theory, and postcolonial studies.

His thesis, titled "Spectral Modernisms: Decolonial Aesthetics and the Art of Resistance in Early Post-Protectorate Morocco," focuses on art, architecture, and politics in Morocco between the 1950s and 1970s. This unique project highlights the plurality, heterogeneity, and contradictions of Moroccan modernisms, while emphasizing decolonization, Third Worldism, Pan-Africanism, Pan-Arabism, ecology, class, gender, and sexuality. His research is supported by the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), as well as the Institute of International Studies (IIS) and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Berkeley.

They discussed with their guests the question of integrations and the intimate relationship that architects Faraoui and De Mazières, as well as the artists of the Casablanca modernity group (such as Mohammed Melehi, Mohammed Chebaa, Farid Belkahia, and many others), had established. They addressed questions such as:

  • What is integration, and were there international and local references on the subject?

  • Integrations, decolonization, and pedagogy?

  • The concept of "integrations" in the Casablanca School of Fine Arts?

  • The trajectories of the artists in the Casablanca group, similarities, and divergences.

  • Integrations, dialogue between universalism and particularism.

  • The dialogue between art, architecture, and craftsmanship in Morocco.

  • The emergence of the architect duo Faraoui and De Mazières.

  • The genesis of the Southern hotels projects (Les Gorges de Dadès, Les Roses Dadès, Taliouine).

  • The relationship and dialogue between architects and artists in the design and implementation of construction projects.

  • The types of integrations present in these hotels.

  • The heritage value of these buildings.

  • A critical look at the current state of the Roses Dades M'gouna hotel.

  • The future and use of this heritage.

MAUD HOUSSAIS

MAUD HOUSSAIS

RIAD KHERDEEN

RIAD KHERDEEN

USEFUL NOTES AND LINKS

Maud Houssais

maud.houss@gmail.com

RIAD KHERDEEN

riad@berkley.edu