The Al Firdaous GREENHOUSE, 2024 

For this 13th edition, THE GREENHOUSE takes the form of a fragmentary reflection on water: imaginary images and stories about its fragile permanence and its cohabitation with the Moroccan urban environment. From May to July 2024, the Atelier de l'Observatoire will implement its research by organising artistic interventions and one-off workshops in two locations:

Lake El Oulfa in the Hay Hassani district of Casablanca.

The dry lake of Laassilat (30km from Casablanca).

An ongoing dialogue will be established and maintained between the artists, the sites and the local inhabitants in order to create a contemporary, ecological and social fresco. 

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Workshops

 

WATER MAPPING, Kimiā Collective, Lac El Oulfa

 

Tuesday 7 May from 2pm to 5pm

Wednesday 8 May, 9am to 11.30am

 

The aim of these workshops is to develop a collective project based around Lake Oulfa and its ecosystem, inviting children to interact with the lake, both as a fluid archive of its past and as a place of potential futures. Introducing participants to the cyanotype printing process, the workshop invited them to use the ‘water mapping’ technique, a contact printing method developed by the artists, and to experiment with different materials collected in situ.

The workshop ended with an exchange with students from the EAC (Casablanca School of Architecture) to consider the design of a floating structure to be activated on Lake El Oulfa.

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Led by the artists Chahine Fellahi and Kaïs Aïouch, with children from the Bab El Firdaous school.

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kimiā is a Casablanca-based collective dedicated to experimental practices in audiovisual, photographic and other forms of media arts. Its aim is to promote handmade, do-it-yourself modes of production, as well as practices that make use of methods - both old and new - that explore the material and chemical properties of the image.