Nudity vs Concealment

Asilah Festival

                         Medina Art

The Medina in Asilah comes alive with arts, world music and diverse cultural events that Morocco brings and yokes together in the height of the summer season.

Asilah Arts Festival is an international creative narrative, it is the effort of Morocco’s Cultural Inclusion Dialogue Strategy hosted annually and typically in colourful and memorable fetes, throughout the country. Of which, Asilah is itself a piece of art, a picturesque historic pretty little coastal town, nestled in the Southern Eastern Atlantic shores, province of Tangier.

Paintings, murals, poetry, music (Andaluse, Ghanewa, performance art, folklore) and other activities including Henna Art, Crafts, Oratory are all a part of the many creative exchanges and points of connectivity. Linking the member countries via this exciting, on-going artistic discourse that is relayed in the spirit of art and festivity. Blending diversity in the exchange of cultural vibrancy, hosting artists from abroad, while sending theirs to across.

 

(Murals 2017)

Occurring in the height of the summer season, amidst the tourism months and heaving crowds, in a time that native Moroccans return home for their summer break, adding  more hues to this special and festive time.

Aesthetic vs Science;

The mural above, Nudity vs Concealment (2008) adorned one of the Medina walls, its duality, anatomy/nudity, I found exceptional in the way it dealt with the human form in a scientific narrative forming its backdrop. Its about anatomy (or/and nudity?); what I loved about it the most was its simplicity and how it communicated with the viewers Science via Aesthetics or vice versa – offending no one considering the nudity pinned on a backdrop of potential Moroccan conservatism.

The artist placed the subject matter in a medical discourse, which left no room for any perverse objections from a few who might have had wished to warp it in wanton morality – Depicting just how Art can obliterates and borders and moral boundaries. soothing extremity and potentially corrosive ideology.

Serving a powerful and collective medium, art is a far-reaching force with an aspect that is ever-changing and transforming spaces. In Morocco, it is an exchange brimmed with cultural variance and wealth, conflating on the Atlantic shores of an otherwise seemingly sleepy town, Asilah; with its golden beaches, a historic Medina and Murals adorning it, delighting residents and the visitors from around the globe visiting in the summer months.

Nudity vs Concealment

My photo, Nudity vs concealment is a composition including a man with his young son, sitting down on the left wearing a full length long gown, Andora, contrasted against three figures of Nudity in the background. I named it Nudity vs Concealment. Photo by Lily Von Valley Asilah Art Festival 2008.

A video of the Medeina Art 2017 posted by Moustacho.com  https://www.facebook.com/moroccanserectingbridgesnotwalls/

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