Agraw en “cinema from below”

This lecture and discussion by Tizintizwa Collective (Nadir Bouhmouch & Soumeya Ait Ahmed) in OT301's Ventilator Cinema is part of the Lumbung Practice programme, where participating collectives from de Appel Curatorial Programme, Gudskul Collective Practice, and Sandberg Temporary Programme learn about lumbung, self-organization, and sociopolitical artistic and curatorial practice, as well as producing alternative art institutions and economies for the future.

Nadir and Soumeya will screen parts of films they have been working on and discuss the practice of the commons in Morocco and how they connect it to making “cinema from below”.

Countless historians have described vast portions of pre-capitalist Morocco as a “bled siba”, a chaotic land where “general anarchy” was the rule. Of course, this narrative lies at the heart of the discourse used to delegitimize the highly decentralized, confederated and relatively horizontal social structures which characterised much of the country up until the 1930s. At the heart of this organised “disorganisation” lie the commons, for which responsibility is carried by decisions from below. The Tizintizwa collective’s research delves into these communitarian models which are not only omnipresent in Moroccan collective consciousness, but continue to be practiced in ever-changing ways including in social struggles like that of the 2011 Imider protest movement. For Tizintizwa, in relation with these struggles, these models can also be applied to the field of arts and culture, whether in the creative process or in the manner by which arts spaces are organised. Tizintizwa’s practice thus attempts to experiment with how this can be accomplished, whether it is through making a “cinema from below,” archive-making inspired by “agadirs” (collective granaries), or by carving out common spaces for “popular knowledge”-production.

This talk is in collaboration with KANAL–Centre Pompidou, Brussels

Doors open: 7m
Start lecture: 7.30pm
Drinks: 9-10pm

Tickets are available through Amsterdam Alternative.