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Rabat – After 2 years of continuous lockdowns in Morocco, Street Art Festival “Jidar” returns for its sixth year, and the festival is scheduled to take over the streets of Rabat from September 16 to 26.
Organized by the Artistic and Cultural Education L’Boulevart (EAC-L’Boulvart) Association, the festival’s program is expected to adhere to the preventive measures set due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and will be respecting social distancing measures.
The festival will host 20 street artists such as Imane Droby and Omar Lhamzi from Morocco, as well as other international artists representing Japan, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and France.
The festival intends to utilize Rabat’s facades as open-air canvases for large-scale murals to provide a showcase for contemporary and urban art.
In partnership with Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary, “Outdoor Museum” is a concept created by the festival, which allows artists to paint the six facades of the museum.
For this year’s festival, only one facade will be painted by the Spanish artist Txemy.
The festival also includes meetings with a handful of invited artists as a means of promoting sharing, exchanging, and reflecting on the significance of art in the public sphere.
Yassine Balbzioui, a Moroccan multidisciplinary visual artist will host a workshop about the concept of “Creation” in order to bring awareness on the importance of raw materials, and explore the possibilities of creating an artistic piece using these raw materials.
The Moroccan artist aims to invite participants to shed their imaginations and step away from virtual spaces, and instead roam the streets of Rabat and capture images that best depict the concept discussed during the workshop.
A new segment “Jidar Talks” is added to this year’s agenda and is an opportunity for artists and the public to debate around street arts and its disciplinary.
The festival this year will launch a developed version of its mobile application, with an objective of allowing users to easily navigate between the 9 locations chosen for the event, as well as discovering frescoes – a technique of mural painting.
Street art became prominent in recent years and Morocco’s capital is filled with murals and graffiti expressing different themes that showcase local culture and traditions. Tour operators and travel companies now offer street-art tours in major Moroccan cities.
