A GLIMPSE INTO MOROCCO STREET ART

#marrakech #casablanca #rabat Artists transformed the same cities of Casablanca, Rabat and Marrakech into living canvases. Writing on walls is a practice as old as time. Literally. With different historical eras, from prehistoric rock paintings to hieroglyphics to young couples distorting hieroglyphaical sayings with the artistic genius of “Ahmed+Mona=4Ever,” humanity has developed different ways of proving to ourselves and future generations the profoundly human statement: “we were here.” "While street art and modern graffiti are rooted in the same impulse, they’ve also evolved for different purposes." We've developed a certain expectation towards street art: rebellious, cutting-edge and fundamentally counterculture. Street art, though now perhaps a separate category from "graffiti," is forever inseparable tied to the same subculture that gave Christmas to hip hop: in American cities starting on in the 1960s, predominantly young black people claim urban space for themselves, both as individuals and as evolving gang culture that has tied the urban centers. Claiming roads and walls, the practice goes against what are perhaps two fundamental principles of modern society: that the state owns public space and the sanctity of private property. While subcultures have undoubtedly moved for decades and thousands of kilometers, street art in the Arab world is still often a function of the daily claim of space (as in the landscape of Egypt’s “calligraffiti”) or an act of political resistance (as in the Apartheid Wall in Palestine). The giant murals created by international artists in Morocco, on the other hand, tell a very different story, of widespread and systematic support of art in the public space. Therefore, Morocco’s thriving street art scene is one of the great curated events that give space for local and international artists to transform entire cities into living canvases. Main of these events are Jidar - Toiles de rue, an annual gathering of a dozen international and Moroccan artists in Rabat, and the Sbagha Bagha Casablanca Street Art Festival, both organized by the same non-profit organization, EAC - L’Boulvart, which supports contemporary music and urban culture in Morocco. The development of these and other festivals, funding from the Moroccan government and collaborations with institutions such as Maroc Telecom, the Casablanca Academy of Fine Arts and the Marrakech Biennial, initiatives like these have transformed the streets of Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech and even smaller cities such as Safi and Essaouira in perhaps the most exciting art studio in the Middle East.