In the Meantime

March - September 2021

Curator: Susana Moliner (Grigri Projects)

Organised by: Museo Reina Sofía, Casa Árabe and Medialab Prado

Admission: Free, some activities require prior registration

More information, updates, safety conditions:
In the Meantime

In the framework of the exhibition Moroccan Trilogy 1950–2020, which surveys the cultural evolution of the Maghreb country over recent decades by way of 250 works, the Museo Reina Sofía joins Medialab Prado and Casa Árabe to organise In the Meantime, a programme of activities which seeks to bring to light and question the complexity of Morocco’s contemporary reality via an encounter between different artists and creators from the country. Curated by Susana Moliner, the programme comprises round-table discussions, conversations, lectures, workshops and performances, to be held across the three sites mentioned above over a six-month period.

In the Meantime looks to provide a device which contributes to activating and articulating networks between guest cultural agents from Morocco and local communities in Spain. The programme’s activities explore tensions between Morocco’s social environment and privacy; the multiple ways in which Moroccan artists work to gather and hybridise knowledge and art-making; the critical production of independent publications released from the mid-1960s to the present day; the diversity of romantic ties and ways of relating to the environment and inhabiting it. Essentially, an exploration of events across the intermediate time that opens up between the three periods structuring the Moroccan Trilogy 1950–2020 exhibition, underscoring not only the present but also the artistic potential and collective movements inscribed in its different territories and landscapes.

The programme’s activities feature the participation of numerous artists, such as Yassine Balbzioui, Safaa Erruas, Mohamed Larbi, Karim Rafi and Younes Rahmoun; writers Najat El Hachmi and Abdelá Taia; cultural researchers such as Driss Ksikes, Salah Malouli and Kenza Sefrioui; feminist illustrator Zaineb Fasiki, performer Lila Dila and visual artist M'barek Bouhchichi.

Encounter with Safaa Erruas, Abdellah Karroum, Karim Rafi and Younes Rahmoun
25 March 2021, 6 pm
Museo Reina Sofía, Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200

A conversation between artists Safaa Erruas (Tétouan,1976), Karim Rafi (Casablanca, 1975) and Younes Rahmoun (Tétouan,1975), and the show’s curator, Abdellah Karroum (Rif, 1970), on the relationships between artistic creation and the territory in which they are situated, as well as how artistic activity is lived and developed in Morocco. The conversation will be moderated by Susana Moliner, curator of the In the Meantime programme.

27 March 2021, 11 am
Casa Árabe

The point of departure of this workshop is the world of Mohamed Larbi Rahhali (Tétouan,1956), an artist who, via variegated elements such as fishing nets, matchboxes with detailed drawings and other small everyday objects, is capable of connecting different scales of representation, a material universe that gives rise to multiple dimensions of meaning in the world we inhabit. In a dialogue with the artist, the workshop puts forward the collective production of installations, where each participant articulates a constellation from this universe through quotidian materials.

An Art, Culture and Politics Magazine from Morocco
8 April 2021, 6 pm
Museo Reina Sofía, Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200 and online platform

This new edition of Documents is centred on the Moroccan cultural and avant-garde journal Souffles, directed by poet Abdellatif Laâbi, it brought together the most relevant voices in poetry, art and thought from post-colonial Maghreb from 1966 until it was banned at the beginning of 1972. The encounter gets under way with a presentation by Abdellatif Laâbi, before moving on to a lecture by researcher and journalist Kenza Sefrioui and the reading of different manifestos and poetry published in Souffles and translated into Spanish for the first time for this event. It concludes with a dialogue between both speakers.

A Drift Through Territories
26 May 2021, 6 pm
Museo Reina Sofía, Nouvel Building, Protocol Room

At a time of boiling-point and multiplicity in the feminist movement, Maggie Schmitt and Hanan Dalouh Amghar undertook a research process that started with a trip around Morocco in February 2020. This presentation explores the feminist collectives — and/or women’s and gender dissidence collectives — that are currently active in the Moroccan territory, and the practices, debates and challenges put forward among these groups and with Moroccan society, as well as the links that can be established with the situation in Mediterranean Europe. Participants: Hanan Dalouh Amghar, Souad Eddouada, Zohra Koubia, Nadia Naïr and Maggie Schmitt. Organised by: Museo Reina Sofía and La Laboratoria. Feminist Research Spaces

28 June - 6 July 2021
Medialab Prado

The work of Yassine Balbzioui (Mohammedia, 1972) questions the play with simulation, the mask, the “unsaid” that societies organise and which come to form reality. In his work Double Faces II during his Medialab Prado residency, he resumes the collaboration and performance Double Faces started during Dak'Art, the 2012 African Contemporary Art Biennial, with Yago Torroja (Madrid, 1963), a professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and researcher in the field of artistic practice and new technology. The result of this collaboration will occasion an interactive performance, to be held on 10 June 2021 at 7:30pm.

Fanzine Workshop with Zainab Fasiki
30 June to 2 July 2021, 11 am
Museo Reina Sofía, Sabatini Building, Workshops

This activity sets out to collectively create a fanzine to explore the representation of bodies in the company of Zainab Fasiki, a feminist draughtswoman and illustrator whose first published comic Omor. Only between us (2017) explores the difficulties facing women living in Morocco. In 2018, she put together Hshouma (Taboo), a website and comic on taboos in Moroccan society with a significant social and media impact in her country.

With Najat El Hachmi, Zainab Fasiki and Abdelá Taia
1 July 2021, 6 pm
Museo Reina Sofía, Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200

In this encounter, writer Najat El Hachmi (Nador, 1979), feminist illustrator Zainab Fasiki (Fez, 1994) and writer Abdelá Taia (Salé, 1973) will discuss the ever more frequent protest actions around sexual rights in the private and public spheres.

Opening Cracks in the Moroccan Culture Scene
3 July 2021, 12 pm
Museo Reina Sofía, Sabatini Building, Protocol Room

Skefkef is an independent comics magazine for adults, created in 2013 in Casablanca, which explores the social and cultural dimensions of contemporary Morocco via satirical drawings and texts. This session sees Salah Malouli (Casablanca,1979), a founding member of the publication, analyse how its appearance has shed light on a generation of artists interested in self-management and a culture of the commons.

Performance and Workshop with Nezha Rhondali (Lisa Dali)
From 5 to 9 July 2021
Casa Árabe

During this workshop, participants will be able to approach the corporeal practice of artist Nezha Rhondali, aka Lisa Dali (Lyon, 1983) and the actions she carries out in urban spaces in Morocco with her collective. The workshop will conclude with a presentation of the resulting work.

15 September 2021, 7 pm
Casa Árabe

In this encounter, Abdelaziz El Idrissi, director of the Mohamed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rabat, Abdellah Karroum, curator of the exhibition Moroccan Trilogy 1950–2020, and playwright and thinker, Driss Ksikes, share keys around the context of contemporary Morocco, placing the stress on cultural ecosystems capable of generating new collective meanings.

A Weaving and Creative Textiles Workshop with Safaa Erruas
From 16 to 19 September 2021
Museo Reina Sofía, Sabatini Building, Protocol Room

The work of Safaa Erruas (Tétouan,1976) explores ideas of the body and borders via visceral objects created from fabrics. The workshop aims to produce textile works that reflect the testimonies of Moroccan collectives living in Madrid. With the collaboration of: Museo Situado

Workshop with M’barek Bouhchichi
From 20 to 23 September 2021
IES Pradolongo, Madrid, and Museo Reina Sofía, Sabatini Building, Workshops

Using rudimentary and clay-like materials, visual artist M'barek Bouhchichi (Akka, 1975) makes work that evokes denied or silenced identities and voices. In this workshop, in collaboration with IES Pradolongo, Madrid, the idea of the medal is explored and based on American sculptor David Smith’s series Medals for Dishonor (1938–1940), which are part of the Muso Reina Sofía Collection. With the collaboration of: IES Pradolongo, Madrid

21 September 2021, 7 pm
Casa Árabe

In this encounter, moderated by journalist Sarah Babiker (Madrid, 1979), artists M'barek Bouhchichi (Akka, 1975) and Rubén H. Bermúdez (Madrid, 1981) will engage in dialogue to deploy a critical gaze on the racial dimension of their own national identity through their art work.