Carrefour / Meeting Point
The Marrakech Biennale and beyond
July 17–October 4, 2015
ifa Gallery Berlin, ifa (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations)
Linienstrasse 139/140
10115 Berlin
Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 14–18h
Admission free
Marrakech is a cultural, geographical and artistic crossroads between North and Sub-Saharan Africa, East and West. As a metaphorical centre, the city and its art biennial are the focus of the exhibition Carrefour/Meeting Point—The Marrakech Biennale and beyond at ifa Gallery Berlin.
Carrefour—a crossroad where narratives meet. Each narrative embodies an individual trajectory with its own subjective mapping and centre: that from which one speaks. How can dialogue occur when individual trajectories meet, beyond the borders of words?
This exhibition is a journey towards “other” modes of experiential and material connection. An invitation to draw porous routes and explore languages that counter the geographic and metaphorical distance that separates us. The starting point of this exhibition takes as a fictional centre the Marrakech Biennale. The curator Alya Sebti has invited participants of past editions to develop ideas and projects within a new space of encounter.
With existing works as well as commissioned projects, they have created new forms of language negotiating between alternatives forms of translation and transmission: where music becomes a unique orientation; where olfactory experience draws a conversation between poetry and fragrance; where weaving performs as a geometry lesson and shield masks open up to listen to the polyphony of voices expressed by the individual whose path reaches a crossing—Carrefour / Meeting Point.
In recent years the ifa Galleries Berlin and Stuttgart have presented various international biennials which were, like the Marrakech Biennale, supported by the ifa (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations). The ifa is in charge of the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and as an actor in international artistic exchange, it gives impulses in the discussions about the modes of operation of art biennials.
Participating artists: Saâdane Afif, Leila Alaoui, Yassine Balbzioui, Max Boufathal, Megumi Matsubara, Clara Meister and S.T.I.F.F.
Curator: Alya Sebti
Events
Opening
July 16, 19h
Artist talk with Saâdane Afif, Leila Alaoui, Yassine Balbzioui, Max Boufathal, Megumi Matsubara, Clara Meister & S.T.I.F.F. and the curator Alya Sebti
July 17, 16h
Performative talk with Megumi Matsubara
July 17, 17h
“where are you speaking from?”: Participants talk (artists, curators and writers) with Alya Sebti, Saâdane Afif, Clara Meister & S.T.I.F.F., Nico Anklam and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung
September 17, 19h
About the ifa
The ifa (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations) is committed to a peaceful and enriching coexistence of people and cultures worldwide. It promotes artistic and cultural exchange in exhibition, dialogue and conference programmes. As a competence centre for foreign cultural and educational policy, the ifa connects civil societies, cultural practices, art, media and science. It initiates, moderates and documents discussions about international cultural relations. The ifa has a global network and counts on long-term cooperation. It is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, the state of Baden-Württemberg and the city of Stuttgart.
Information:
T +49 30 28449140 / ifa-galerie-berlin [at] ifa.de
