ALL VIDEOS IN THIS CATEGORY

• 

  A conversation on African presence and invisibility (FRENCH)

  Round table discussion hosted at Casa Árabe, as part of the program "Entretanto" and the exhibition "Moroccan Trilogy," organized by Casa Árabe the cooperation of MNCARS and Medialab Prado. North Africa, like any other place in the world, poses challenges around the concept of identity, as a monolithic entity which determines who belongs to or comes from a specific place. However, as elsewhere in the world, the fiction of a homogeneous, harmonious identity that embraces and confers consistency to a narrative of community or nation can easily dispense with lifestyles, colors, viewpoints and traditions which go beyond the limits of the imaginary through which nations and peoples see themselves, thus causing tensions. Examining the contradictions that others experience when they are forced to look at themselves can help us come to terms with our own contradictions. From one side of the Straits of Gibraltar to the other, identities which are non-existent, which are much less than the truly existing array, create a game of smoke and mirrors that loses meaning when their surface reveals that a mosaic is actually present. When gazed at closely, geographic and demographic maps fail to uphold either the imaginary of the South or that of the North. Seen very much up-close, the pieces in this mosaic are far more permeable and provocative. They tell a far greater story than the identity fictions which block a clearer view of the landscape. Since its independences, Morocco has privileged the Arab-Muslim identity, leaving aside other features of its culture and geography. To the north, Spain accommodates this Arab-Muslim identity as part of the Moorish imaginary, an otherness from which the country can dissociate and compare itself, in order to define itself as the European counterpart. The opposition is neverending, but neither South nor North are so different, and neither country is the way it likes to imagine. Other bodies, other experiences and other memories inhabit the territories of the present and timeless tales, thus challenging the vantage points looming over peoples without ever setting foot on the ground to see who truly inhabits and comprises these places. M’barek Bouhchichi (1975, Akka, Morocco) lives and works in Tahanaout, near Marrakesh, where he teaches art. Using painting, sculpture, drawing and even video, M’barek Bouhchichi carries out his work through a tentative language based on the exploration of the limits between our internal discourse and its extension towards the outside world, the real world, and his social representation as a racialized person. Yeison F. García López (1992) was born in Cali (Colombia) and grew up in Madrid (Spain). He self-identifies as Afro-Colombian and Afro-Spanish. He studied Political Science and the Master in Research Methodology in Social Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). Anti-racist activist. Founding member of the Afrodescendant University Association Kwanzaa of the UCM (2014-2016). Member and coordinator of the Asociación Conciencia Afro. Curator of the Conciencia Afro Festival (2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019). In 2016, he published the poetic plaquette "Voices of Impulse", edited by the Centre for Pan-African Studies. And in 2021 he published his first collection of poems "Derecho de Admisión", published by La Imprenta. Sarah Babiker (1979, Madrid) has a degree in Social and Political Anthropology from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences and is a specialist in International Information and Countries in the South. A journalist and partner at El Salto Diario, she writes from a viewpoint focusing on feminisms, anti-racist struggles, neighborhood resistance and social justice. More information: en.casaarabe.es/event/a-conversat…-and-invisibility

  Published at 24 27,,, 21 2021
• 

  Aula Árabe Universitaria 3.2.: Geopolitics and climate diplomacy in the Mediterranean region

  Second conference of the Aula Árabe Universitaria 3 program, by Jürgen Scheffran, Professor of Geography at the University of Hamburg. It will be on Tuesday, October 5 in our Auditorium in Madrid. The Mediterranean region, connecting South Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, is a complex crisis landscape and hotspot of geopolitical conflicts which can spillover into neighbouring regions. Increasingly, the region is exposed to climate change which is a multiplier of risks, interwoven with the region’s geopolitical dimensions, including natural disasters, water and food shortages, energy transformation, human migration, conflict and cooperation. Climate risks are expected to diminish human livelihood security for a growing population and interact with other pre-existing challenges to regional stability. Cooperation across the Mediterranean is difficult, given the wide disparities and divisions of the area. There is growing concern and awareness of climate-related common security challenges, to be addressed in climate diplomacy initiatives and activities, for instance water and energy partnerships, networks for information exchange and regional governance. Jürgen Scheffran is Professor of Geography at University of Hamburg and chair of the Research Group Climate Change and Security in the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability and the Climate Excellence Cluster CLICCS. After his PhD in physics, he worked in interdisciplinary research groups in environmental science and peace and conflict research at the universities of Marburg, Darmstadt, Paris and Illinois, as well as the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. In addition to networking activities, he was involved in projects for the United Nations, the Office of Technology Assessment and in the expert commission on forced migration of the German government. Main research interests are: Climate security, environmental migration and resource conflicts; water-food-energy nexus and urban-rural relations; sustainability, complex systems and models; technology assessment, arms control and international security. More information: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/geopolitics-and-climate-diplomacy-in-the-mediterranean-region-from-climate-conflict-to-cooperation

  Published at 25 27,,, 21 2021
• 

  Aula Árabe Universitaria 3.1. : Re-imagining the Arabs: Literature and social contracts

  Casa Árabe is bringing back its program Aula Árabe Universitaria, in a third edition planned for the academic year of 2021/22. This will also be the official opening session of the UAM’s Master’s Degree program in Contemporary Arab and Islamic Studies. The event will be held in a hybrid format, with one of the speakers participating remotely. Trapped amid tradition and post-modernity, contemporary Arab identity has been misinterpreted and misrepresented. The political landscape of all societies has undergone profound change in recent decades, and the Middle East and North Africa region has not been spared from the world’s transformations either. Despite the promise of events in 2011, the momentum for progress in governance and freedom has broken down violently, and political stagnation has been revived. The elusive nature of globalization, coupled with the unstructured environment of political life, has arguably given way to “liquid times” (Zygmunt Bauman), exacerbated by an emerging “age of anger” (Pankaj Mishra). As a result, many are crying out for a rethinking of the concepts and cognitive frameworks used to narrate the individual human experience and humankind’s joint history. How can Arab societies re-imagine themselves and take ownership of their histories? Novelist Fadia Faqir explored the limits of patriarchy and the voices of women writers, while Amro Ali has been reflecting on karama (dignity) and the social contract in her latest essay. Casa Árabe, with the cooperation of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), is organizing this round table discussion, which at the same time will serve as the official opening session of this new edition of Aula Árabe Universitaria (third edition) and the Master’s degree program in Arab and Islamic Studies at the UAM. Taking part will be Nieves Paradela, a professor of Arab Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Thomas Volk, director of the regional program “Dialogue with the Southern Mediterranean” of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s International Relations Coordinator. Fadia Faqir authored "Nisanit", "Pillar of Salt", "My Name is Salma / The Cry of the Dove" and "Willow Trees Don’t Weep". Her work has been translated into fifteen languages and published in 19 countries. The foreword to her fourth novel, "At the Midnight Kitchen", was published in Weber Studies, and won its fiction award in 2009. Her short story “Under the Cypress Tree” was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2010. She was the director of the Master’s degree program in Gender Studies - Arab World at Durham University’s Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies until 2004. Her academic writings focus on gender, democracy and Islam, as well as violence against women. She is a writing fellow at Durham University’s St Aidan’s College, where she teaches creative writing. She is also one of the founders of The Banipal Visiting Writer Fellowship, initiator of the Alta’ir Exchange between Durham and Jordan, and a trustee of the Durham Palestine Educational Trust. Amro Ali is a researcher with the Forum transregionale Studien (EUME) and the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies at the Free University of Berlin, as well as a member of the Young Arab-German Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Prior to that, he was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the American University in Cairo (AUC), an Associate of the Sydney Democracy Network, and a Visiting Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung /Berlin Center for Social Sciences, WZB). He holds a PhD from the University of Sydney, an MA in Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies and an MA in Diplomacy from the Australian National University. His fields of research include Arab public spheres, Mediterranean Studies, contemporary Alexandria, intellectual history, cities, citizenship, exile, technological modernity, sociological philosophy and political philosophy, with a focus on Hannah Arendt, Václav Havel and Byung-Chul Han.

  Published at 07 23,,, 21 2021
• 

  A dialogue between Abdellah Karroum and Driss Ksikes. "Around and through three times" (FRENCH)

  At this event, which forms part of the  Entretanto event series and coinciding with the end of the  exhibition “Moroccan Trilogy," we will be taking stock of the ability held by artistic creativity to affect and enable new ways of sensing the collective and, in particular, how this has taken place within the context of contemporary Moroccan society.  Through a dialogue between Abdellah Karroum, the exhibition curator, and playwright and thinker Driss Ksikes, we will perform an overview of the cultural ecosystems that emerge from and pervade three periods proposed by Karroum in this exhibition of contemporary Moroccan art at the Reina Sofia Museum, ranging from the transition to independence (1950-1969), then what were known as the “Years of Lead” (1970-1999), followed by the period lasting up to the present (2000-2020). The event will be conducted by Susana Moliner, curator of the “Entretanto” event series, in which we hope to provide a path towards a collection about what took place and what remains from these three periods in the “Moroccan Trilogy” exhibition at present, within a context of global fragility and uncertainty, reviving the emancipating and transformative aspects that have been triggered by artistic practices occuring in Morocco. Driss Ksikes  (1968, Casablanca) is a researcher, writer and literary critic. He directs “Economia,” an interdisciplinary research center at the Institut des Hautes Études de Management in Rabat, where he is a professor of Media and Culture. Prior to that, he was the editor of the magazine Telquel  and director of the Arabic language magazine Nichane. He has been greatly involved in the organization of cultural activities on art, knowledge and public space in Morocco in collaboration with universities and international, Arab and African entities. He recently published the novel Au détroit d’Averroès (2017, Le Fennec & 2019, Fayard.) Abdellah Karroum is a curator, writer and educator (b. 1970 Rif - Morocco). He is the Artistic Director of L’appartement 22 in Rabat - Morocco, and the Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha - Qatar since 2013. Karroum is also the founder and artistic director of a number of art initiatives, including L’appartement 22 in Rabat, and has curated numerous exhibitions, such as, most recently, “Moroccan Trilogy 1950 - 2020” at Reina Sofia in Madrid (2021); “Our World Is Burning” (2020) at Palais de Tokyo, Paris; “Kader Attia: On Silence” (2021), “Revolution Generations” (2018), “Shakir Hassan Al Said: The Wall” (2017), Wael Shawky: Crusades and Other Stories (2015), Farid Belkahia: Aube(s) (2015), and Shirin Neshat: Afterwards (2014), all at Mathaf. He was artistic director of Inventing the World: The Artist as Citizen for the Biennale Benin (2012), curator of Sous nos yeux [Before Our Eyes] at La Kunsthalle de Mulhouse (2013) and at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2014), and associate curator of Intense Proximity for La Triennale, Paris (2012). Other curatorial and research projects include the Sentences on the Banks and other activities at Darat Al-Funun, Amman (2010); A Proposal for Articulating Works and Places for the 3rd Biennale of Marrakech (2009); the R22 art experimental web radio station established in 2007; Le Bout Du Monde art expeditions (ongoing since 2000); the Editions hors’champs series of art publications established in 1999. He received his PhD in Communication, Art and Performance from the Michel de Montaigne University - Bordeaux in 2001 with a dissertation titled “Nomadic Works: Towards a Post-Contemporary Art,” accomplished while working full time at the capcMusee in Bordeaux (1991-1996). He was alumni of MoMA-Columbia University Curatorial Leadership program (2014) and he regularly writes for specialized art publications. Further information: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/a-dialogue-between-abdellah-karroum-and-driss-ksikes-around-and-through-three-times

  Published at 56 23,,, 21 2021
• 

  Conversación con Shahira Mehrez a propósito de Hassan Fathy

  El jueves 22 de julio ofrecemos un diálogo entre la diseñadora egipcia Shahira Mehrez y José Tono Martínez, comisario de la exposición "Hassan Fathy: a contracorriente". Participa además Cándido Creis, agregado cultural de la embajada de España en El Cairo. Presenta: Nuria Medina, coordinadora de Cultura de Casa Árabe. Durante los meses en los que Casa Árabe presenta en sus salas la exposición “Hassan fathy: a contracorriente”, ofrecemos una serie de eventos paralelos que nos permitan profundizar en el conocimiento de este genial arquitecto egipcio, icono de la arquitectura sostenible a nivel mundial. En esta línea, y a propuesta de la embajada de España en el Cairo, hemos tenido la suerte de poder conversar con la diseñadora Shahira Mehrez, una de las personas más próximas a Hassan Fathy y con quien compartió muchos momentos importantes de su carrera profesional y de su vida personal. Shahira nos recibe en su casa de El Cairo, diseñada por el propio Hassan Fathy y nos habla respaldada por una de las celosías que tanto han caracterizado la obra del arquitecto. Shahira Mehrez (1943) es una diseñadora muy conocida y una figura imprescindible en el panorama cultural e intelectual de Egipto. Posee un máster en Arte y arquitectura islámicos por la Universidad Americana de El Cairo y ha sido investigadora postgraduada en la Universidad de Oxford, además de profesora en la facultad de Turismo de la Universidad de Helwan. Su interés por la herencia tradicional Egipcia en peligro de extinción le llevó a reconducir su carreara y durante los últimos cuarenta años ha estado investigando y colecionado joyas y trajes tradicionales egipcios, hasta la fecha poco documentados pese a su relevancia. Actualmente prepara la publicación de sus colecciones. Hassan Fathy (Alejandría, 1900- El Cairo, 1989), conocido mundialmente como "el arquitecto de los pobres", es una de las figuras más apasionantes de la historia de la arquitectura contemporánea. Erudito, pintor, poeta y pensador, fue un intelectual que vivió los momentos más importantes del Egipto del siglo XX. Se opuso a la idea neocolonialista que pretendía homogeneizar la cultura egipcia según un esquema internacionalista. Con su filosofía constructiva volvió a las raíces, a mirar las enseñanzas del campesino tradicional, del «fellah», o a las tradiciones nubias del sur donde se seguían construyendo cúpulas, arcos y bóvedas inclinadas, sin armazón, como se hacía desde tiempo inmemorial. Antes de que existieran las cátedras de materiales de nuestro tiempo, Fathy se fijó en las propiedades milenarias del adobe, las arcillas y las arenas secadas al sol y mezcladas con paja como material constructivo disponible y barato, y con altas capacidades de aislamiento térmico. Esta tradición milenaria ha sido fundamental en el desierto, donde se producen fuertes contrastes de temperatura entre el día y la noche. Más información: https://www.casaarabe.es/eventos-arabes/show/conversacion-con-shahira-mehrez-a-proposito-de-hassan-fathy

  Published at 08 22,,, 21 2021