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The anniversary of MED-OCC
February 04, 20158:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
8:00 p.m.
The Cultural Association of the Western Mediterranean (MED-OCC) celebrates 15 years doing its work
On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of MED-OCC, Casa Árabe has organized “A Journey from the Western Mediterranean,” an event to pay homage to the organization. the event will include participation by several professionals who work in the same field as this association, as well as a musical performance.
Since it was created, MED-OCC, headed by Diego Moya (a visual artist and project director) and Zara Fernández (project and communication director of MED-OCC), has had the conviction that there is a wide range of artistic and cultural affinities between contemporary creators from different countries, despite their lack of mutual knowledge about each other. In 2015, MED-OCC is celebrating 15 years in its journey from Spain to other shores of the Mediterranean. Casa Árabe, which has collaborated with this entity on several initiatives, is celebrating it with an exciting event that will include music, poetry and talks by professionals and representatives from institutions which have taken part in the various exhibitions and activities promoted by MED-OCC over these last 15 years.
In addition to others, the event will include participation by Guillermo Escribano, of the AECID Cultural and Scientific Relations Directorate; Abdelkrim Ouassani, a visual artist and former director of the Tetouan School of Fine Arts; Luis Gordillo, artist; Emilio Rivas, an architect and the President of MED-OCC; Ahmad Taherik, Director of the Persepolis Center in Madrid; Federico Arbós, an Arabist and translator; Rosana Acquaroni, a poet and professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and Eduardo López Busquets, the General Director of Casa Árabe.
The musical accompaniment will be performed by the group TAKSIM, whose members are:
Hames Bitar: Arab oud
Javier Escaned: saxophone
María García Cameselle: double bass
From 2000 to 2007, MED-OCC held meetings and put on traveling exhibitions, the most notable of which have included Re-Encuentro-Tawassul and Afinidades, considered the first relevant bilateral gatherings in the field of contemporary visual arts between Morocco and Spain, with the participation of artists such as Luis Gordillo, Rafael Canogar, Farid Belkahia and Abdelkrim Ouazzani, as well as others, and intellectuals including Juan Manuel Bonet, Santiago Olmo and Edmond el Maleh.
The Association later traveled to Syria along with visual artists and photographers from Spain, including Isabel Muñoz, for the official opening in 2010 of the exhibition Ilham-Insipiration at the National Museum in Damascus. That very year, in the “Jusur-Puentes Archways” at Nuevos Ministerios in Madrid, MED-OCC put on the first architecture and landscape exhibition between Spain and Morocco, which formed part of the cultural program of Spain’s European Union Presidency.
In 2012, MED-OCC took part in the Ifitry Artists’ Residency (Essaouira) through Maroc Premium, with a group of eight artists that included Fernando Verdugo, José Freixanes, Marina Vargas, Diego Moya, etc., who were later selected to take part in the First Casablanca Biennial.
Recently, MED-OCC has collaborated with the Focus Abengoa Foundation in Seville on the communications for the magnificent exhibition, Nur-Light on art and science in the Islamic world. It has also been involved in the field of music, through its participation in the Lavapiés Diverso Festival and the First Week of Persian Music, organized by the Persepolis Center in Madrid.
And along the same lines of expanding its journey to other countries, MED-OCC is now setting its sights on Iran, a very active country in the field of contemporary visual arts, with which it is attempting to build new bridges.