EPISODE 131
Roots And Traces Of Contemporary Cultural Life In Tangier
From questions of diversity and difference to the roots of present debates around representation, responsibility, and justice, Youmein 2021: Roots and Traces was an open-ended artistic inquiry into how the structures of our past have shaped our current moment. The traces of this past appear in unexpected places, both institutionally and in the social milieu from which we develop artistic reflections. Uncomfortable inequities and realities sit adjacent to the rise of powerful populist and progressive movements worldwide. Since Youmein began in 2014, xenophobia, isolationism, and neo-imperialism have grown simultaneously with new forms of solidarities and ways of being in-common. How will these movements leave their traces in our shifting social orders, and how will they transform, sediment, and root themselves differently? So far, each edition of the Youmein Festival has taken on themes speaking to Tangier as a space of both border and bridge: al-barzakh, crisis, imitation, limit(s), and desire. This year, those themes became the fertile ground on which we will reconvene and dig deep into what has come before and make choices about where we want to go next. After a year of isolated reflections, and alongside the Bicentennial of the Tangier-American Legation, Youmein invited the artists, speakers, and the public to critically reflect on the view from Tangier, and the cultures, peoples, and conditions which compose it.
As a part of the 2021 Youmein Festival, Alami and Bajalia reflected on Tangier and its myths, past and present, and alternative cultural histories and present realities in this corner of the Strait of Gibraltar. From Maalem Abdellah Gourd and the renovation of his home in Tangier medina to the role of the Tangier American Legation Museum in the city, they share thoughts how different flows of people through the city, categorized differently as migrants, immigrants, “ex-pats,” and artists, intersect and overlap.
