current residents
Studio 5
Nabil Himich (Artist, Morocco/Meknes)
Nabil Himich works at the intersection of architecture and literature to investigate political themes. By juxtaposing painting, installation, writing, drawing, sculpture, and participatory forms, his multi-layered work broaches themes such as the singular and the multiple, unequal structures, psychogeography, and the poetics of enclosure. He often adopts notions such as ‘con-texture’ and ‘archi-texture’ to provide deconstructive schemes for thoughts and actions. These notions are also conceptual tools for narratives around the production and formation of place, the distribution of territory and knowledge, and class issues and representation.
Nabil Himich is a multidisciplinary artist and graduate of the Institut National Des Beaux Arts (Tétouan 2020), based in Marrakech.
Studio 7A
Aliocha Tazi
(Artist, Morocco/Marrakech)
Aliocha Tazi is a French-Moroccan artist. He holds a Master's degree in Printed Image from ESAV La Cambre (Brussels, Belgium). Having grown up in Marrakech, he regularly returns to Morocco to pursue his interest in Moroccan crafts and culture. There, he collects materials, objects, experiences, and stories that inform his practice. His work explores notions of cultural identity, back-and-forth, and play. He uses a variety of techniques (textiles, screen printing, wood engraving, etc.) and "poor" materials. He does not seek to produce works with a single purpose. Oscillating between art object and utilitarian object, his pieces are intended to live in different contexts, moving between public spaces and exhibition spaces.
Studio 7B
vacant
Temporary exhibition of works by Nabil Himich
Studio 9A
Khalid Boulaadam
(Artist, Morocco/Safi)
Khalid is a young artist from the region of Safi who graduated from the Tetouan Academy of Fines Arts in 2020.
The son of a potter, he is reflecting on the tradition within the history of clay use in Morocco, from the nature of the material to the shape it has to the motives used, and its evolution throughout the modern era.
Studio 9B
Mehdi Ouahman
(Artist, Morocco/ Mohammedia)
Mehdi Ouahmane is a graduate in Fine Arts and Graphic Design. Mehdi’s work has been exhibited at Galerie Alyssart (2020), Abla Ababou Gallery (2019), GVCC (2018) in Morocco. His work has won him multiple accolades like the Mophradat Self-Organizations Award (2020) and the Young African Artists Prize (2018). Through his work, Mehdi engages with themes of environmentalism and highlights the contradictions between the ecological ambitions and environmental reality of his home city.
Studio 9C
vacant
Temporary exhibition of works by Khalid Boulaadam & Younes Rahmoun
Upcoming tutors/exhibitors
Nástio Mosquito
(Artist, Portugal/Angola )
coming back in April 2025
Nástio Mosquito’s (born 1981 in Luanda/Angola) work is characterized by its cross-genre multifacetedness. Film, music, theatre, video, and installation blend into one another to form a dense performative-digital poetry of image and language.
In 2014, he was awarded the Future Generation Art Prize. He lives and works in Ghent, Belgium.
Lara Baladi
(Artist, Lebanon/Egypt)
coming back in April 2025
An acclaimed Egyptian-Lebanese photographer, archivist and multimedia artist, Lara Baladi co-founded of the Arab Image Foundation (AIF). Her body of work encompasses photography, video, visual montages/collages, installations, architectural constructions, tapestries, sculptures and even perfume.
During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Baladi co-founded two media initiatives: Radio Tahrir and Tahrir Cinema. .
Michel Assenmaker
(Artist, Belgium)
present throughout April 2025
I taught contemporary and modern art theory in Brussels for 40 years and also in Maastricht for a few months. I also taught French language for a year in Beijing. I have published two books and several texts (among others, based on works by Michael Asher, Peter Downsbrough, Hubert Duprat, Bernd Lohaus, Jacqueline Mesmaeker, John Murphy, Didier Vermeiren) and have worked as a curator in Brussels, Antwerp, Luxembourg, Marrakech, collaborating with Giovanni Anselmo, Stanley Brouwn, On Kawara, Olivier Foulon, Eric Van Hove, and Sherrie Levine. I have worked as a seminar director in Bordeaux with Mario Merz, Harald Szeeman, Wolfgang Laib, Pascal Convert, and Lawrence Weiner and have given lectures in Rome, L'Aquila, Bordeaux, Arles, Paris, Nîmes, Beijing, and Brussels. I enjoyed the paintings of Titian, Cézanne, Barnett Newman, as well as the photography of Edward Weston, Carlo Mollino, the music of Bach, Monteverdi, Ligeti, Moondog, and also flamenco, rebetiko songs, and Sade. I have loved Robert Walser, Marguerite Duras, and Chantal Akerman. I still love them. I exhibited with Céline Willame and, most recently, with Jacqueline Mesmaeker and Jacques Lizène at Nadja Vilenne. Currently in preparation, suite 12, with Najwa Borro. At the moment, I am reading José Bogalheiro and Edward W. Said.
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vacant
past residents
Fayçal Tiaïba/Laberinto
(architect, Algeria/France)
Fayçal Tiaïba (né en 1974, Chambéry, France) est architecte et photographe. Il a obtenu son diplôme à l’Ecole Polytechnique d’Architecture d’Alger en 1997 et son DEA à l’Université de La Sorbonne à Paris, se spécialisant dans le patrimoine historique et les mutations urbaines. Après avoir travaillé avec Shigeru Ban à Paris, il rejoint le Studio KO à Marrakech pour le projet du Musée Yves Saint Laurent avant de devenir associé. Il quitte l’agence en 2022 et fonde Laberinto, un studio multidisciplinaire basé à Marrakech et Paris. Il poursuit en parallèle sa pratique photographique, questionnant le rapport entre histoire et architecture. En 2024, il fonde Atelier Gueliz, un laboratoire d’idées qu’il anime avec des étudiants dans le but de faire reconnaître et protéger le patrimoine architectural de Marrakech. Ses précédentes expositions à Marrakech s’intitulent Homo Urbanicus et Atelier Gueliz : identifier.
Koharu Yamaguchi
(Blacksmith, Japan)
&
Shinya Kobayashi
(Artist/Designer, Japan)
with the support of MUJUN Japan.
Mujun is a design and craft collective living and working in the rural Japan where traditional craft industry still exists. They are a team of designers and young craftsmen who specialize in knife making.
In 2008, they started their design practices, and have worked with craftsmen in different fields. Their clients are experienced veteran craftsmen who have been perfecting their skills for a long time. Their role as a design company is to modernize the beauty of their crafts for the wider audience.
Redesigning the crafts was not enough to reach the new market. Craftsmen needed more help. They needed to create a stronger brand to stay competitive in the market. More importantly, many of the craftsmen are getting too old to continue working while most of them did not have young apprentices to inherit the work of craftsmanship.
Jelle Seegers
(Designer, Netherlands)
With the support of Embassy of the Netherlands in Morocco.
Makes solar and human powered tools and machines, allowing himself and others to make beautiful, long lasting things in a sustainable way.
MAMMA Group
(Architects, Casablanca)
MAMMA organized the Marrakech Modern Map (MMM) Workshop together with co-host Fayçal Tiaïba, gathering 10 youngs professionals around the heritage of Gheliz.
MAMMA is an NGO dedicated to promoting and celebrating Moroccan art, architecture, and urbanism from the second half of the 20th century. Our primary mission is to shed light on the innovative work of a pioneering generation of modern architects.
Khadija El-Abyad
(Artist, Morocco/Agadir)
Over the past seven years, El-Abyad has developed a practice woven around her cultural and social contexts. This practice forms an ongoing research into how social constructs are experienced and embodied. Intimate, often worn, material
constructions in various dimensions constitute the main body of her work, which she addresses as ‘body screens’. Her artworks are enriched by materials produced by the body - most notably the artist’s hair - as a symbolic gesture of extending the body. Commitments, obligations, and expectations, as well as engendered future(s), are played out within objects and performances that incorporate the vital materials of everyday life.
Khadija el Abyad is a multidisciplinary visual artist and graduate of the Institut National des Beaux Arts (Tétouan 2017). She lives and works nomadically between places, such as Casablanca.