Nostalgie du Présent, curated by Farah Maakel, is an exhibition where memory seeps into walls, corridors, and courtyards, refusing to be archived as relic. Staged in Marrakech’s first apartment-hotel from 1968, the scenography unfolds like a wandering narrative : doors opening onto layered stories, windows wide to the courtyard, an empty swimming pool resonating with music that draws visitors into wave-like movement. The building itself becomes an instrument its history, its worn textures, its everyday life with guests, cats, and the maître d’hôtel merging seamlessly with the works, so that art and life cannot be told apart.
Sixteen voices weave nostalgia into space, not as static homage but as a choreography of presences: curtains flowing like sudden rainfall, shadows flickering with what is remembered and what slips away, collaged relics forming fragile altarpieces of the future. The scenography is an “archive of gazes”, thick with echoes, questions, and silences. Past and present do not merely coexist here they feed each other, unfolding as an evolving fabric where memory is less a weight than a current carrying us forward.
CREDITS
An exhibition within the frame of 1-54, the international contemporary art fair dedicated
to African art and its diaspora.
Curated by Farah Maakel
Powered by El Mehdi Largo
Artists: Ines Abergel, Mehdi Ait El Mallali, Ismail Alaoui Fdili, Maissane Alibrahimi,Mariam Benbakkar, Elisa Budin & Nassim Boudraa, El Mehdi Largo,Melanie Ebtissem Defoin,Akim El Ouardi,Jessica El Mal, Zineb Linda Kaine, Amelia Malfait Lakhtara, Sara Noun, Yannis Ratbi, Aliocha Tazi, Shama Visini
Performances by Othman Elkheloufi and Fatim-Zahra Alami
Scenography by Ismail Alaoui Fdili, Sara Ayoub, Othman EL Kheloufi, Hiba Hillali et El Mehdi Largo, assistés d’Abderrahman Taha
Visual identity by Andyman Studio – Imane Abbadi et Andrea Sallé
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