International Biennale of Casablanca Launches Online Programme

Mo Laudi. Photo: Jo Zhou

The International Biennale of Casablanca, in collaboration with Making Histories Visible, resumes its Incubation Programme with a new online format.

BiC Digital consists of a new dedicated website www.biennalecasablanca.net featuring highlights from the biennale participating artists, conversations with Casablanca, Moroccan and international cultural partners, a video programme and a creative lab aiming to rearticulate and reshape the biennale’s residency programme, artists commissions, exhibition formats and audience engagement.

The fortnightly online events will launch on Thursday 15 October with Casablanca in Conversation (6.00 – 7.00 pm, GMT+1) a discussion between Sofiane Benkhassala (Cultural Action Officer, Institut français de Casablanca), Mohamed Rachdi (Founder, H2/61.26) and Faysal Ziza (Founder, Divers’cité). The conversation will address the impact of the global pandemic on life and culture in Casablanca, the emergence of new modes of artistic creation, and the new ways of engaging with audiences. Conversation in French moderated by Christine Eyene (Artistic Director, Biennale Internationale de Casablanca).

From 7.30 to 8.30 pm (GMT+1), Paris-based South African multidisciplinary artist and DJ Mo Laudi will premiere a new sound art piece inspired by the practice of photographer George Hallett (1942 – 2020) exhibited at the BiC Project Space (Casablanca) last February. The new commission takes the relationships between Hallett’s life, photography, and South African jazz in exile as a departure point. Through archives, original composition, field recordings and memories, the work questions the idea of displacement, mobility, and their implications on political, mental, spiritual and emotional levels. Mo Laudi also draws parallels with his own self-imposed exile, having left South Africa to live in London and Paris.

BiC Digital is developed by Christine Eyene along with associate curators Soukaina Aboulaoula and Cindy Sissokho. It is conceived as a curatorial and editorial virtual space and will run from 1st October to 12 December 2020, until the biennale resumes its activities in Morocco. A detailed programme of events will be available soon.

For more information, please contact Selma Naguib at press@biennalecasablanca.ma.