Moroccan artist in residence, Mustapha Akrim, has extended his participation in the Haverford College community to working with some of the school’s art classes.  In a workshop led by Akrim alongside Professors John Muse and Erin Schoneveld, Akrim showed various students from the Tri-Co how to construct art with concrete.

Students were assigned to choose any word, in any style, to that they would make a mold of and create out of concrete. In order to explain how students arrived at their respective word choices, Professor Muse recalled that the class discussed “words, concrete, and typography” together and how each principle could relate to each other.  Like with Mustapha’s Article 13 and Article 25, the students considered how their words would be interpreted once molded into concrete.  One group of students played with the use of concrete as a very permanent material and the impermanence of promises, especially those made over text message, by creating the word “Yes” surrounded by a speech bubble.  Other students focused less on the metaphorical meaning of concrete, and focused more on the typographic style of the words.

Akrim uses concrete in part for its accessibility and his familiarity with the material, and partly because of the permanence that it represents. Because many of Mustapha’s works relate to the dichotomy between what the government promises its people and what the people actually receive, concrete serves as a vehicle for showing this irony. This workshop allowed students to fully understand the effort that goes into Akrim’s work and how it is as much a complex creative experience as it is physically labor intensive process.

To start off the tutorial, Akrim directed the students to cut their words out of the polystyrene mold with a drill.  After cutting squares surrounding each word out of the polystyrene, they placed the print out of their words on the polystyrene and poked holes through the page, outlining each letter.

Students traced over the imprinted poke holes left in the polystyrene, then began to cut out their words; the negative space being left in order to be filled in with concrete.

Students left their molds in Mustapha Akrim’s studio for a few days, and are set to retrieve them tomorrow, Saturday March 29.

Artists often must take day jobs to support themselves, but Mustapha Akrim is unusual in that he came to his artistic career through his day job.  Having graduated from the National Institute of Fine Arts in his native Morocco, Akrim found it difficult to find employment after graduation; so to pay the bills he worked with his father, a builder.  In his off hours he used his father’s workshop for artistic projects, and he continues to draw inspiration from his father’s career.  His 2011 work Bidoun (Without) is a vivid example: “I took my father’s tools and put them all together,” says Akrim of the toolbox-like result—and then, of course, “I bought him new tools.”

The title of Bidoun (Without) refers to the lack of steady jobs for young Moroccans like himself, a theme echoed throughout his oeuvre.  His most famous piece, Article 13, is a rendering of the eponymous section of the Moroccan constitution, which reads, “All citizens have equal rights of education and employment.”  But Akrim says, of this and similarly lofty provisions, “this exists just in the constitution—and the social reality, the economic reality, that’s another thing.”  To make this point, he casts Article 13 in concrete—the medium of his father’s handiwork.

Akrim will be creating several works for our upcoming exhibition, Memory || Place || Desire, including a version of his Article 25.  Drawn from the 2011 revision of the Moroccan constitution, which was implemented by the king to placate dissenters during the Arab Spring, Article 25 guarantees that “all citizens have the freedom of thought, ideas, artistic expression and creation”—but like Article 13,  Article 25 is also cast in concrete.  Moroccan artists may be guaranteed freedom of expression, at least in the letter of the law; but these promises are empty, just like the shape in which he arranges the words of Article 25.

Akrim will be in residence at Haverford through March 27.

When Moroccan artist Mohamed El Baz visited Professor Carol Solomon’s Curatorial Praxis class last Wednesday, February 26^th, he did more than just display some of his works.  He recruited students in the class to help him create his video installation for the upcoming exhibition.  The video, which was created by having students sing a song that was significant to them and spin around the camera as if they were taking a ‘selfie,’ was filmed entirely on campus.

One of the participants was Elisabeth Hawthorne ’17, who chose to sing the Irish folk tune “Raglan Road.”  “There was an uncanny, uneasily personal relationship with the camera,” she recalled.  As for the spinning itself, Hawthorne noted, “it is harder than it seems.”

Another student said the singing itself made her feel “invigorated.”  “There was a freedom I had never really experienced before that moment and I enjoyed every moment of it.”

Both students also had very positive things to say about the actual experience of working with Mohamed.  “I got the sense that he was sure of his process and method of creation whereas I had no idea what to expect,” said Hawthorne.  The other student described the unique experience as “fun and new.”

El Baz, who is currently at Haverford thanks to the Mellon Creative Residencies Program, describes all of his work as falling under the title Bricoler l’incurable, or “Mending the Incurable.”  His art is dynamic, to say the least.  Recurring themes include violence, freedom, and the occasional irony, among other things.  As parts of recent works, he has had his viewers shoot paintballs at a map of the world and has even figured out what modern drug prescriptions would be given to some of history’s most famous artists.

The video installation was unveiled at an Open Studio night on Tuesday at the squash courts under Ryan Gymnasium.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday March 4th), 7:00-8:30 PM join the Mellon Creative Residencies and Haverford College for a special Open Studio night, welcoming internationally-recognized Moroccan artists Mohamed El baz.

Meet the artists and explore past work and work in progress for the Fall 2014 exhibition Memory, Place, Desire: Contemporary Art of the Maghreb and the Maghrebi Diaspora. Following an introduction by Prof. Carol Solomon, Mohamed El baz will reveal a never before seen video installation.

The artists have travelled from France and Morocco to the Tri-Colleges for an immersive six-week exploration of contemporary art in the Maghreb, hosted by the Mellon Creative Residencies Program.

The Open Studio will be held in the Drop Shot Squash Court, in the Ryan Gym Basement at Haverford College.

Light refreshments will be served.

For more information, contact Mellon Creative Residencies Coordinator, Tom Bonner at tbonner@haverford.edu or visit http://www.haverford.edu/HCAH/mellon_creative_residencies/

Moroccan artist Mohamed El baz has been in residency for a couple days now, and his installation for the forthcoming exhibition is taking shape.  With a tongue in cheek spin on the whirling dervish (see below), Mohamed has asked many students to aid in his project.  The play on the whirling dervish is to have students sing a song that has great meaning to them while they are spinning.  Though this project is young, it will be fascinating to see where it will go and what the project’s final form will look like.

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