My scientific residency centers on the Moroccan filmmaker, writer, and artist Ahmed Bouanani (1938-2011).
First, I consider the impact of his documentation of Amazigh (Berber) and Moroccan popular arts and practices in relation to other Moroccan experiments with modernist art and culture during the postcolonial period, arguing that they constitute an answer of the problem of how to live in a Mediterranean, Maghrebi, postcolonial society.
Second, I consider his collaborations within and outside of Morocco and his diverse Mediterranean and Moroccan influences. Third, his renewed international circulation provides me an opportunity to rethink the relationship between curation, authorship, criticism, and collectivity, drawing on recent theories of film and curatorial practice to consider the way that we, as scholars and critics, address North African and Arab art and artists in an international frame.
