Vernissage 14.09 - 18:00 > 22:00
15.09 > 17.09 - 14:00 > 18:00
MAAC
'The video-installation Rabat 1964, initiated in 2015 with Samir El Guertit, could be summed up in an apparently simple formula: an identical remake of amateur holiday films from my finds at a flea market in Brussels from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, gleaned at at random. The film that I found among many others and that caught my attention is shot in Rabat in 1964 by a Belgian industrialist on a business trip to Morocco.
The resulting video installation is a confrontation of the original film with its replica: the two synchronised projections show the 54 years that separate them. Between these two films there's what has changed and what remains unchangeable. In this work, I'm interested in two things. On the one hand, the revaluation of the status and value of the amateur film. On the other hand, the historical dimension that it carries, redefining in time what belongs to heritage.
The four years of preparation, scouting and filming gave rise to multiple meetings, and we invited people we met to travel back in time, to better locate the present. Little by little, names began to appear on the faces and anonymous silhouettes of 1964, recognised by relatives in 2018. Family stories, intimate stories, popular figures of the old medina, etc. The more meetings we had around these 54-year-old images, the more the will to give a voice to these places, incarnated by the inhabitants of Rabat, imposed itself. This was formalised in a sound work that accompanies the two projections and marks the exhibition space. In a way, through this polyphony of narratives, the project has gone from an act of reconstitution to an act of restitution. The restitution of the images of a city passed to this same city, in its present.' - Antone Israel
Vernissage 14.09 - 18:00 > 22:00
15.09 > 17.09 - 14:00 > 18:00
MAAC
'The video-installation Rabat 1964, initiated in 2015 with Samir El Guertit, could be summed up in an apparently simple formula: an identical remake of amateur holiday films from my finds at a flea market in Brussels from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, gleaned at at random. The film that I found among many others and that caught my attention is shot in Rabat in 1964 by a Belgian industrialist on a business trip to Morocco.
The resulting video installation is a confrontation of the original film with its replica: the two synchronised projections show the 54 years that separate them. Between these two films there's what has changed and what remains unchangeable. In this work, I'm interested in two things. On the one hand, the revaluation of the status and value of the amateur film. On the other hand, the historical dimension that it carries, redefining in time what belongs to heritage.
The four years of preparation, scouting and filming gave rise to multiple meetings, and we invited people we met to travel back in time, to better locate the present. Little by little, names began to appear on the faces and anonymous silhouettes of 1964, recognised by relatives in 2018. Family stories, intimate stories, popular figures of the old medina, etc. The more meetings we had around these 54-year-old images, the more the will to give a voice to these places, incarnated by the inhabitants of Rabat, imposed itself. This was formalised in a sound work that accompanies the two projections and marks the exhibition space. In a way, through this polyphony of narratives, the project has gone from an act of reconstitution to an act of restitution. The restitution of the images of a city passed to this same city, in its present.' - Antone Israel
