This collective exhibition features works created by international, national, and local artists in the artistic fields of photography, illustration, printmaking, and other media. Curated with a focus on “Gentrification,” the exhibition aims to inspire dialogue and examine the connection between gentrification, art and cultural heritage. By extension, this collection provokes critical thought into how
art could act as a positive vehicle into a variety of possible futures related to cultural heritage.
Free and open to the public, this event encourages attendees to interact, reflect, and exchange ideas in a creative space. Participants are invited to gather, meet the artists, and spark discussions relating to the exhibition and the theme, “Gentrification, Arts, and Cultural Heritage.”
About the Artist Participants :
Benjamin Bini
At the age of 7, Benjamin Bēni picked up his first camera. The small foldable Minolta would change his life. His initial passion was for portrait photography, a passion that would take him around the globe twenty years later. Trained at MJM Paris from 1999 to 2002, he quickly began selling his photos in the world of luxury and fashion.
There, he learned to combine technical precision and creativity, especially during his time at the Harcourt studio and through demanding collaborations with groups like LVMH and France Télévision.
Over the years, he moved away from commissioned work to focus on the development of collaborative artistic projects. His approach became both unique and collective. Portrait photography emerged as a primary research axis, exploring universal themes. In 2012, he received recognition from UNESCO for two of his projects: "Face à l'âme" and "IDENTiTESproject," which were published in UNESCO's Courrier International. He ventured out to meet the Other, questioning form and substance, creating fertile tensions, and revealing photography where it is least expected.
An account of Bēni's work would be incomplete without mentioning his street creations. These reflect his sensitivity to the question of art expression in public spaces. For an artist like him, expressing oneself beyond walls is a conscious participation in the succession of ephemeral traces and signs etched into the urban landscape. It is both giving and receiving in equal measure.
Hamza El Baciri
Born in Es-Semara in 1994, Hamza El Baciri, also known as Nejma's Salt, lives and works between Taza, Fez and El Jadida, Morocco. His academic career extends from Literary and Cultural Studies to Gender Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Sociology. He is a digital artist, a writer and a teacher of English. His work has been reviewed by different magazines and was featured on TV. Though El Baciri's work is purely digital, it relies heavily on a process of researching photos, especially vintage ones from different Arab countries as well as making use of his personal photo reservoir. Over the past eight years, Hamza has been taking and collecting random photos and often combines some of its elements with vintage photos from a specific historic period to express his inner thoughts. "One of the defining qualities of my personal being is that I exist in three. Some might call it an identity crisis, but it is merely a persona which lives in the inter-dimensions of past-present-future. In a fast-growing world, it would be rather difficult to block the noise around us for a moment and contemplate ourselves, let alone question all that it is we do. The benefit of overthinking is that your mind becomes louder than the outer world, allowing you not to take an automatic step back, nor a step forward, but a step down. Sitting with yourself and asking questions about whether who you are, at that moment, comes from a deep place within you or just via societal imitation. The latter is a poisonous parasite which might delude you into following other people's steps to a promised land which is not your own. Negotiations like these might produce conflict within and might lead to crises, but what would come of us without them?"
Carina Hommel
Carina Hommel was born in 1987 and is a freelance artist and art educator from Germany. She works at the intersection of art and social work, mainly in the Ruhr Area. As a member of “Studio Horst e.V.”, she implements projects and develops the region. Her art educational work ranges from developing art projects in different jails to projects that give marginalized groups of people a voice. In her own works, she combines different genres and techniques like film, video mapping, sculpturing, painting and cyanotype.
Abdelhamid Belahmidi
Abdelhamid Belahmidi is a Moroccan conceptual and documentary photographer, based in Casablanca. He uses photography to give an artistic expression to the invisibility of his living experiences.
Through his series “Where is the Sea” and “Copy machine” he projects his artistic approach, representing his experience as an employee, symbolizing different emotions he goes through, trying to overcome a living system of modernism and massive consumption, in an allegoric representation of ourselves into a hyper connected society.
In 2021 he co-founded the Collective “Kan3awd” that aims to tell visual stories through photography and filmmaking, working on topics related to post-modern society and people in constant change. His works were exhibited at Sharjah Art Foundation for VPS8 (2020) and VPS10 (2022). And featured in group exhibitions at PHotoESPAÑA, Madrid (2018); and Cordoba Photography Biennale (2018).
Ahmed Bennani
Multidisciplinary artist. Born in 1976, lives and works in Fez, and is a self-taught Artist.
At first, like all children his age, Ahmed Bennani discovered drawing and its techniques at school, and began by imitating what surrounded him with passion and love. For the young artist, his hometown of Fez was a cavern of Ali Baba, where the colors and shapes of handicrafts sprang up everywhere, vertical and horizontal lines and curves intertwined, and textures, aged and renovated, enchanted the place. It's in this magical world that the young artist's talent will blossom.
1955 Born in Münster, Germany
1983 Diplom-designer and photographer (Master of Arts) at the university of applied science, Münster,
The Thesis was a photo-essay about the people of Fes-Medina.
1983 AGENTA-advertising agency, Münster
1984 Wiegel-Bracht photo studios, Münster
1996 Move to Cologne
1986 Freelance photographer in cologne
1987 Editor and staff photographer for MEDIZIN HEUTE, Cologne
1995 Training for image editor, Henri Nannen School, Hamburg
1996 Grant of the Bertelsmann Foundation at the Academy of Journalism, Hamburg
1998 Editor and staff photographer for DEUTSCHES ÄRZTEBLATT, Cologne
Freelance work for: Terra-Magazin, Globo, TAZ, Deutsches Ärzteblatt, Praxis, Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Hapers Bazaar,
Bundesärztekammer, Caravanmagazin, marokko.com, FORE Golf-Magazin, Motorrad, Golf Magazin, Fiumara d`Arte, Caritas,
Roderick Grierson is Menteşezade Research Fellow and Director of the Rumi Institute at Near East University. He has recently completed the first English translation of the Risalat al-Nushiyya of Yunus Emre and is currently writing an exhibition catalogue of engravings, lithographs, and photographs of Mevlevi dervishes beginning in 1665. In 2014, he delivered the Robertson-Hastie Lectures at the University of Glasgow, which examined the career of William Hastie, the author of The Festival of Spring from the Díván of Jeláleddín. He is now editing the sixth volume of the Mawlana Rumi Review for publication in 2015 and working with Sidi Brahim Tidjani and Omar Chennafi to prepare an illustrated introduction to the Tijani zawiya in Fes.
Born and brought up in Wales, U.K. Jess Stephens studied Fine Art at Kingston University, London.
Access to a multi-disciplinary arts scene during a progressive era in London was great fodder and
foundation for Stephens as a young artist.
Shortly after Jess moved to Barcelona where she gained her Masters Degree in European
Contemporary Arts under the Spanish branch of Winchester University. ( UK ) She travelled widely
around Spain during her 8 year residence and it was during this time that she crossed the Straits and
further explored Morocco.
After many visits exploring the possibilities of living in North Africa, Jess moved to the Fez region in
2007. A year later she founded Culture Vultures, an arts a cultural organization coming from Sefrou.
Now 7 years on, with a small team of Vulturettes, Stephens runs C.V. with much lust and enjoyment.
The many cross-cultural dialogues, interminable discoveries and the creative platform that Culture
Vultures provides is reflected in her work as a multi-disciplinary visual artist.
Jess is currently exploring various visual art forms from digital to textile based, found object and
collage. Her work has an eclectic and kinetic sensibility and often reflects her original love of
painting, in particular abstract expressionism.
Stephens works and lives in Sefrou, ( Fez Region) Morocco.
born 1986, has been a co-curator at the independent art space Prima Kunst in
Kiel, Germany since 2013. She is currently writing her Master’s Thesis in Painting under the tutelage of Professor Antje Majewski at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Art and Design in Kiel. Her Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts and English Literature was completed between Howard University, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. and The University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago.In addition to her work at the Prima Kunst Gallery, her art has been exhibited in group shows in Trinidad and Tobago, China, Poland, and Germany. She has also assisted artists, curators andgallerists in varying capacities in Trinidad and Tobago, China, Martinique FWI and Germany.
After Evi Blink, born 1986 in Heidelberg Germany, finished her apprenticeship as photographer in 2011, she started to
work as a freelancer in Cologne and has worked for different clients: Aktion Mensch Magazin, Stadt Köln, Universität zu
Köln and others
Additionally she studies photography at the Fachhochschule Dortmund.
Evi's interest in general is to find experimental ways to describe issues in society, emotions and different processes.
Abstraction is a very important part of her works right now.
Her analog work "suchen.wissen.Amsterdam" is currently shown in a group exhibition in Bielefeld, Huelsmann Museum.
Latest she is working on a project about young women in Marrakech.
Fatma Gültaş, born 1989, has been a co-curator of the independent art space Prima Kunst in Kiel,Germany since 2011. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Fine Art under the tutelage of Professor Piotr Nathan at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Art and Design parallel to a Master of Education in Philosophy at the Christian Albrecht University in Kiel. A part of her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art and Philosophy was completed at the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul, where she conducted original research on two of the city’s mosques; the Hagia Sophia and Selimiye.In addition to her work at the Prima Kunst Gallery, her art has been exhibited in group shows in Kiel, Berlin, Hamburg, NYC, Istanbul, Danzig, Fez. She took part in Artist-in-Residence-Programms in Turkey, Marocco and Taiwan.
Miriam is a writer from London, living in the Fez Medina. Splitting her time between blogging, journalism and short fiction, she focuses on the smaller details of daily life in the old town. As assistant editor, she works on Fez Photo’s written material. As a creative partner in the project, she provides insights from her own work into life in Fez.
Patrick Segura is a video, performance, sound, and installation artist living in Chicago. Patrick received his BFA in Painting from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2011 and his MFA in Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. Dealing with issues of body, play, virtuality, and sexuality, he draws from his background of gaming to create structures for understanding these ideas and their relationships. He embraces emergent technologies to help excavate his conceptual territory. Patrick is a Luminarts Fellow, a College Art Association Fellow, as well as the recipient of SAIC’s Dean's Scholarship and the Clay Morrison Scholarship. He was also a representative of SAIC in EXPO Chicago. Patrick has shown work in the Prospect 2 Biennial, Acadiana Center for the Arts, and Sullivan Gallery in Chicago.
Né à Fès et nourri par son esprit, le jeune artiste peintre Abderrahim El Hassani fait son entrée dans l’univers de la couleur dès son jeune âge. Sa passion pour les arts plastiques s’affirme très tôt, ses premiers dessins datent de 1985. En 2005, il débute une formation à l’Atelier Palette D’or, qui dura quatre ans. Cette formation initiatique a été d’un grand profit pour le jeune peintre. Il découvre le dessin, les croquis, les techniques d’Aquarelles et les peintures à l’huile.
Soukaina Joual, visual artist, born in 1990, lives and works in Fes. Graduated from the National Institute of Fine Arts 2011 in Tetouan, Morocco. Her work has been shown in several exhibitions, including the Contemporary Art Fair of Africa and the Mediterranean in Casablanca in 2011; BLAST at the GVCC in 2012, "Diary of a Thief - we steal Because We love" the Sunday Issue Gallery in Tokyo in 2013 and "A Matter of Sensuality" in JIKKA in Tokyo in 2015… She has been invited for many artist residencies including, La cite internationale de Paris, The French Institute of Fez, La friche Belle de Mai in Marseille
Movement Cercle Souffles is a spiritual cultural and social movement dedicated to sufism and the Tijani spiritual path. Created as a intellectual circle gathering religious leaders, researchers, teachers, writers and artists affiliated to the Tijani spiritual path.
Hamza El Fasiki is a multidisciplinary artist: Traditional Visual Copper Artist and Traditional Andalusian Musician from Fez, Morocco. He is also Founder of CraftDraft.Org
Ramia Beladel (°1987, Marrakech, Morocco), graduated from the fine art institute in Tetouan Morocco, is an artist who works in a variety of media. With a conceptual approach, Beladel tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical, her artworks directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday experiences from the artist as a starting point. Often these experiences are framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context.
PILOTENKUECHE / international artist residence' Martin Holz ,born in Germany, 1986, living and working in Leipzig, is a visual artist and author. He merges and combines artistic and literacy techniques to do a transdisciplinary spectrum with a special focus on performance art strategies, groupdynamic and intermediality. As initiator of the interdisciplinary symposium "conquering places" , Germany 2014, he worked as a project manager. In 2014 he started working at the project 'PILOTENKUECHE / international artist residence' as a scholar and later, in 2015, he run the project together with Ines Lucines. Basing on this activity he supports artists around the world giving one scholarship to its residents in a period of four months. Martin Holz realized diverse exhibitions, projects and publications. In these activities he iscontinuously working together with other artists, authors and scientists.
Frank Vellenga works a documentary filmmaker and photographer, usually on social issues. He lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. For more than 25 years he has worked as a director on documentaries and reportages, shown on filmfestivals and broadcasted on public tv , making photos “on the side” in countries as different as for example Morocco, Siberia/Russia, Indonesia, Eritrea , India, Bolivia, Congo, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Romania, Austria and Germany. Some of his films have been shown in over 30 countries in Europe, Asia and America. Now he is more into photography , basically looking for the meaning of pictures in a flood of visual stimulation via internet and other platforms . The more individualistic a photo is, the better it becomes is his credo .
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