Long time ago, I told myself to accept all the invitations to give a talk or to participate in roud-tables, it did not matter if the organisers where public or private institutions, in the framework of big or small events, because you never know who could be among the audience. I think I have rejected just a few of them during the last ten years and I did it because I had another engagements at the same time, not because I did not consider them interesting.
In January 2008 (the 21st), Younès Rahmoun asked me to come to Tetouan, to share everything I was “discovering” during my stays in Lyon (and surroundings) and Madrid, related to contemporary culture (architecture, art, music, theatre, dance, cinema…). It was not easy to link all these disciplines and to transmit the need of being curious when talking about contemporary creation.
To be frank, I thought it was going to be a talk for all the INBA students, but finally it was just for 8 people, those from Younès’ atelier. It did not matter, I did my best. At the end, while almost all the students left quickly the classroom, one of them stayed and once I finished picking up my stuff, he came to talk to me, he wanted to show me his last project, related to “cartography”. It was an interesting project and later, during the lunch, Younès confirmed me it was one of the best students he never had.
Fine-Arts National Institut in Tetouan (INBA). January 2008
Some years later, in January 2010, Younès wrote me an email, he wanted to know if I still was in Ceuta or if I already came back to Lyon, because a young artist wanted to meet me in Tetouan, the one that two years earlier, when he was still a student, showed me his work after my talk at INBA. I agreed to meet both of them in Tetouan because I was going the stay the whole month in Ceuta.
We meet in a coffee and the young artist explained that he had a project, or rather a dream, to built an art school in a small oasis, near his city, Guelmim. For that, he needed an architect and he only knew one, besides with some sensibility towards contemporary art. I listened to him carefully but I had no idea where Guelmim was, so he told me it was a city in the south, considered the gate of the Sahara desert… I heard the word desert and my mind became overexcited. During years, I wanted to visit the south of Morocco, I already knew the north, and thanks to the French learnt in Lyon, also the center. If I never had come to the desert, it was because the only opportunity I had had, was with a travel agency, with ten or twenty AWD cars and I had promised myself to discovered the south with local people, and this young artist was just proposing me to come with him to the desert. He continued to talk and talk about his region, maybe trying to convince me to come to a such a far place, without knowing that I was just thinking about possible dates while he was talking and talking… At a moment, I interrupted him:
Listen to me Mohamed, when can we go to Guelmim, next week?
He could not believe I really wanted to come and moreover to do it so quickly. We finally agreed to come in two weeks. Younès have been listening the whole conversation and he just said something at the end:
Can I come with you?
In January the 25th, I left Ceuta (with the car of my brother because the Volvo was in Lyon), I picked up Younès in Tetouan and we head to the SOUTH, to Guelmim and Tighmert, to meet MOHAMED AREJDAL.
You will find on this album, the pictures we took during 6 days.
Watching the pictures, you realise the imaginary I had in mind concerning the desert, for example the desire of walking on the dunes (even if it was just the sand of a beach). But there were also amazing discovering, the oasis of Tighmert, the Nomad Memory Museum, the rammed earth architecture… and overall Arejdal family and Ahmed Dabah’s family.
10 years later, when I think about everything that has happened since that trip, I can say that I could never imagined everything I have learnt, all the places I have discovered, all the people I have met and all the friends I have made (in Tighmert, Zagora, Tissardmine, Marrakech...) and all the projets I have developed with friends (Marsad Drâa, Caravane Tighmert, Project Qafila, Sakhra). What I like most about not having a scheduled life, is to do not know what it will come next and to do not be afraid of it, keeping the capacity of adapting yourself to new circumstances, regardless the time, the efforts, the energy and the studies needed.
I also compare those pictures from 2010 with the ones I took during my last trip to the desert and I really feel there are two completely persons behind the cameras.
Now, we are in 2020, and even if I’m not used to celebrate anniversaries, I proposed Younès to do the same trip Ceuta-Tetuan-Tighmert, as a way to celebrate our friendship, sharing it with some friends that are an important part of this personal, why not intimal journal I initiated in 2010 without being conscient.
Talking to Mohamed Arejdal, he told us it was going to be a pity just to redo the same route we did in 2010, and that we should go further, physically and psychically, so he proposed to go to Mauritania and to cross the Sahara desert.
In some days, I will leave from Ceuta and I will pick up some friends on the way to the south of the south. We will be finally only three (Younès, Ahmed and myself) and we have some purpose but we are opened to what this trip will offer us. It will be important to cross the Sahara, I would rather prefer to do it by walk, but it is not possible right now, so we will do it by car, this time with the Volvo, to take a flight to Mauritania it was not an option, we have to cross by land.
We will try to visit the Adrar region, specially Chinguetti and Ouadane, it will be great because this region is the origin of the Almoravid dynasty, and I could learn and better understand the fortifications they built in Morocco, along the caravan routes.
Of course the caravans will be another subject to research. Chinguetti and Ouadane were Saharan ports linked to Tighmert, Tammedoulte and M’hamid El Ghizlane.
In summary, this trip will be about friendship and about historical research but we cannot forget the meetings we will have, taking into consideration that people from the Azouafit tribe (Ahmed’s tribe) are waiting for us.
I really don’t know what will come after this trip, just let’s try to keep the same opened mind I had in 2010 and then let's see what the future brings us.