Several weeks ago, students in Professor Carol Solomon’s Curatorial Praxis class were assigned an artist whose work will be featured in the upcoming exhibition Memory || Place || Desire.  The students have spent most of the month of April researching the artists and drafting text to accompany their pictured works in the exhibition’s catalogue.  By the end of the last class on Wednesday, each student will also have given a short presentation to the class outlining his/her artist’s background and style.

The presentations and drafting process provide extra insight into each artist’s inspirations and how they have been influenced by the Maghreb.  Nick Schoen, one of the students in Professor Solomon’s class, has been researching Mustapha Akrim, an artist that visited Haverford a few weeks ago through the Mellon Creative Residencies Program.  “Focusing on Mustapha has made me realize that he’s really not just an artist, and a lot of the other artists that will be featured in Memory || Place || Desire aren’t either,” says Nick.  “Mustapha is a visionary.  He is trying to change Morocco for the better through his art, and I have a much better appreciation for him and his goals after meeting and reading about him.”

In addition to the presentations and catalogue entries, the class has also been putting together short recordings on their artists to help create the exhibition’s audio tour.  Mike Ferrara, the student that is spearheading this project, thought it would be interesting to have the students talk casually about their artist for the recordings, rather than just read the text that will be featured in the catalogue.  The recordings are nearly completed.

The class as a whole has spent some time debating the layout, fonts, and cover of the exhibition’s catalogue in the past couple weeks.  A group of students has also been brainstorming the installation design of the exhibition itself in the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery.

Memory || Place || Desire: Contemporary Art of the Maghreb and the Maghrebi Diaspora, the exhibition opening at Haverford in October 2014, is beginning to take shape.

Last week, students in Professor Carol Solomon’s Curatorial Praxis class met with Catalogue Designer Anthony Smyrski to start hashing out the details of the exhibition’s catalogue, discussing everything from the type of paper that will be used to the spatial orientation of what will be printed on each page.  This week, students in the class visited the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery to get to know the space that will be the future home of Memory || Place || Desire.  Matthew Seamus Callihan, Associate Director of the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery and Campus Exhibitions, spoke to the students about all of the fine details that must be considered in the curating process.  One such detail is the gallery’s six movable walls, which can be assorted in any number of ways to customize the space for each showing.  There will also be several video works as a part of this exhibition, so making sure they do not overwhelm viewers will be another challenge.

The list of works that will be included in the fall exhibition is nearly finalized, and it includes two from Mustapha Akrim and three from Mohamed El Baz.  Both of these Moroccan artists visited Haverford in March (as a part of the Mellon Creative Residencies Program) to create works specifically for the upcoming exhibition.  There will also be works in the show by Driss Ouadahi, Kader Attia, eL Seed, and Mounir Fatmi, among others.

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.