Arts for advocacy


‘Arts for Advocacy’ is an inter-disciplinary research project funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund at the universities of Edinburgh and Keele. It seeks to develop innovative, interdisciplinary, and participatory arts-based methods to facilitate critical engagement and advocacy relating to forced displacement in Morocco. Morocco has become a country of transit and immigration, notably for sub-Saharan migrants fleeing a range of socio-economic and political precariousness as well as more recently for those fleeing the enduring conflict in Syria. Morocco is also a strategic partner for the EU and some of its individual members, such as Spain, in the ‘management’ of migration across the Mediterranean. Although Morocco has featured little in recent depictions of the ‘migration crisis’, more research is needed to examine unravelling changes especially since the announcement by the Moroccan King of a more ‘humanitarian’ approach to migration in 2013. In this context, issues pertaining to interculturality, migrants’ rights, violence, and racism in Morocco crucially require new modes of engagement for both research and advocacy.

Researchers, practitioners, and activists support the emergent deployment of arts-based methods as social research tools to engage with displaced communities, pointing to the positive contribution and transformative power of creative arts for advocacy and research on forced displacement. However, this growing emphasis on participatory and interdisciplinary arts-based methods is usually limited to the ‘global north’. In contrast, this project adapts this methodological approach in the context of forced displacement in Morocco

Presse
 

Série “Cutting object”

EXPOSITION AU MUSÉE VIRTUEL DE LA VILLA DES ARTS DE RABAT—LA FONDATION ONA. 
COMMISSARIAT Yvon Langué. DIRECTION ARTISTIQUE: Amine Oulmakki. SCÉNOGRAPHIE Amine Oulmakki, Yvon Langué, Najib Dichari. COORDINATION Hassan Ezzaim, Naima Slimi, Mariangela Palladino, Laura Jeffery, Sébastien Bachelet, Camille Fidelin.

LA FONDATION ONA—LA VILLA DES ARTS DE RABAT Naima Slimi, Hassan Ezzaim, Najib Dichari. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. KEELE UNIVERSITY. ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL. ARTS & HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL. ARTS FOR ADVOCACY Laura Jeffery, Mariangela Palladino, Sébastien Bachelet. GADEM Camille Fidelin, Khadija Souary, Bilal Al Jouhari. 
ARTISTES/ ARTISTS Amine Oulmakki, Julien Fleurance, Dabcha. 
THE PARTICIPANTS Noureddine Ajermoun, Tarek Benchaib, Sakina Bongomba, Fatima Bouhlal, Alpha Camara, Blandine Djeré, Patrick Kit, Mireille Kwami, Mariama Kanny Keita, Oussama Lasfar, Nadine Manteza, Marouane Moubssiti, Joël Moyinga, Milca Mwema, Vermont Nlendfils, Brice Obianga, Reuben Yemoh Odoi, Hajar Ould Bouamer. 

 

 

Exposition au musée virtuel de la Villa des arts (Rabat-Marocco)

 

 

 

Extract from the short film “Missed Call”

 

 

 

 

Contempory center of Glasgow (UK)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibition Narrating objects of displacement un Morocco

 

Short film Missed Call

 

Short film Un Nouveau Souffle (and time breathes)

 

 

 


 

 

To what extent does engagement with creative arts generate fresh insights concerning the politics of displacement, transition, and resettlement in Morocco?
(How) can arts-based methods enhance traditional social research practices in forced displacement contexts? (How) can engagement with arts disrupt power relations and enable co-production of participatory methods? Can creative participatory methods generate synergies between research, advocacy, and capacity building?

 

Exhibition in the Contempory center of Glasgow (UK)