Marrakech Biennale 5 will start February 16, 2014
Curators of MB5
- Visual Arts: Hicham Khalidi
- Performance Arts: Khaled Tamer
- Architecture: Karim el Achak
- Cinema & Video: Bouchra Khalili, Alexandre Kauffmann
- Literature: Driss Kiskes
Hicham Khalidi is a Dutch-Moroccan curator of contemporary art. From 2003 till 2011, he had been the artistic director of TAG (Audiovisual Art Institute in The Hague, The Netherlands). Khalidi studied finance and worked for a couple
of years in the fashion industry. His favorite subjects are the politics of the image, and trans-disciplinary research in speculative art and design.
Hicham Khalidi is a member of the board of: V2_: interdisciplinary centre for art and media technology in Rotterdam, and The Naked: a blog and event promoting a global vs local understanding of the art world today. His latest exhibitions as a curator include: On Geometry and Speculation (as part of the 4th edition of the Marrakesh Biennale, Marrakesh, 2012), Transnatural Festival (Nemo Science Center, Amsterdam, 2012) and Alles, was Sie über Chemie wissen müssen (Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 2011).
French-Moroccan artist, raised between Casablanca and Paris, Bouchra Khalili has studied Cinema at Sorbonne Nouvelle and is a graduate of Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy. The work of Bouchra Khalili – video, installation, photography,
works on paper – has been subject to many international exhibitions, including recently the Triennale, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2012); the 18th biennale of Sydney (2012); MoMA, New York (2011); the 10th Sharjah Biennale (2011); the Gulbenkian
Foundation (Lisbon, 2011); the Liverpool Biennale (2010); the Studio Museum, New York (2010); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2010); INIVA, London (2010); Gallery 44, Toronto (2010); Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid (2009); and the Queens Museum of Art, New York (2009), amongst others.
In 2012, she received the « DAAD-Artist in Berlin Award », and the « Vera List Center Fellowship » (The New School, New York). She currently lives between Berlin and New York.
Alexandre Kauffmann was born in Paris. After he studied letters and philosophy, he devoted himself to cinema with a special interest to Arab and African cinematography and their Diasporas, which enabled him to develop a specific expertise in their history and current affairs. He also devoted himself
to the production of video works situated at the frontiers between cinema and contemporary art. During the past ten years, he produced and co-produced more than fifteen videos in collaboration with Bouchra Khalili. These works have been presented in many international institutions and films festivals, such as the International Film
Festival of Rotterdam, Pacific Film Archives/Berkeley Art Museum, the Cinémathèque Française (Paris), the Pacific Film library Vancouver (Canada), the Filmoteca Espanola (Madrid).
He took part, as an independent curator, in several supporting funds for cinema, such as the Fonds Sud (2008-2011), and the Aide aux Cinémas du Monde (CNC/French Institute/Ministry of Foreign Affaires, France), and as an expert in Doha Film Financing program (Doha Film Institute, Qatar). Alexandre Kauffmann lives in Paris, and works internationally.
Journalist, literary critic, researcher, the 43 year old Driss Ksikes is a writer with a lot of attachment to the city; co-founder of the Ibn Rochd Meetings, Director of the Cesem, research center of HEM and delegate-general of DABATEATR. His Plays are positioned into a totally post-modern tradition that follows the footsteps of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. His characters are normal people that do not even have first names; only an initial, in such a manner that represents the position of the human being in our societies.
He has also wrote a novel; “Ma boîte noire” (My black box) (ed. Tarik and Le Grand soufflé, Paris, 2006), in which the hero of his first name “Mokhtar”, translated as “the chosen” or “the One”, does not turn into a huma n bomb thanks to his discovery of love. Same as “Mokhtar” the narrator of his short novel “Un jour, un sourire” (La pensée du Midi, Actes Sud 2010) is saved by love.
His latest texts are brought together in “Ainsi parle cette chose qui sommeille en toi” (Ed. Maëlström, Bruxelles, 2012). These are monologue portraits. In his pieces of writing, he gives the floor to voiceless characters such as “the woman and the child” or to characters broken down by submission such as “le courtisan déchu”.
Khaled Tamer studied for three year at Ecole Alain Bennac, he moved afterwards to a different form of expression, situated somewhere between drama and dancing. In 1995, he met N. Abad and worked on the Nô theatre and gestures expression. In 1998, he created L’Ile des Esclaves de Marivaux with his company Graines de Soleil and set up training workshops for young people in Créteil, Argenteuil and in Paris (Goutte d’Or neighborhood).
In 2001, he created Terrain Vague, under the theme of street children. In 2003, he became the initiator and organizer of the Veillées du Ramadan. In 2004, he became the initiator and organizer of Festival au Féminin, which is a multi-disciplinary festival revolving around the feminine artistic creativity and cultural diversity. In 2006, he created the Awaln’Art Festival, which is an International Artistic gathering in Public Squares, in Marrakesh. In 2010, he created Profils Atypiques, which is a French-Canadian creation. In 2010, he became an expert with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. At the same time, he conducts a work with Hors Les Murs in the public space (Montréal, New-York).
Karim El Achak graduated from the school of architecture at the Polytechnic School of Turin in 1988. Upon returning to Morocco, he decided to open his own architecture firm, ASSOCIATI, along with his two partners, Amine Kabbaj and Malak Laraki. In 1988, El Achak became involved in more philanthropic ventures and became a founding member of the Tamesloht Association, which was created to socially and economically revitalize the village of Tamesloht and its surrounding areas.
El Achak was also invited to participate in several art expositions. For example, he served as a jury member during the 2009 edition of Riad Art Expo Salon. He currently serves as the President of the Foundation of Festivals of Marrakech in 2010 and is responsible for organizing the National Festival of Popular Arts.
Photo: Hicham Khalidi. Courtesy Marrakech Biennale