THE Maghreb Connection, a most unusual exhibition, is being held in Cairo at the TownHouse Gallery (www.thetownhousegallery.com). The Townhouse Gallery is one of the leading galleries for contemporary art in Egypt so it is not surprising that it was chosen as the venue for this art and research project on the movements of life across North Africa.
The relations between Muslim North Africa and Europe have undergone major transformations since the strengthening of Europe’s southern borders and the global measures against terrorism. Sub-Saharan transit migration is now the dominant and undoubtedly the most mediated form of movement in the region; it has turned the Maghreb into a bustling transit zone. The Maghreb Connection is an art and research project; in other words, it is a visual and academic attempt to understand the origin, the cause and the ultimate goals of the diverse migratory movements in the Maghreb and Mediterranean regions.
While the Maghreb countries have a longstanding history of migration to Europe, the West African migration flow to the north is a more recent phenomenon, coinciding with the consolidation of the European Union. Ursula Beimann, curator of the Maghreb Connection explains, “We have entered a new postcolonial phase. Migration has been drastically restricted and much logistical effort and technological investment has flowed into shielding off the South-North transfer of people. Media images suggesting a constant and undesirable invasion of Europe’s southern borders are feeding the notion that even greater reinforcements will be necessary in the near future.”
In her introduction to the exhibition catalog, Biemann explains that these migratory movements are creating housing problems temporarily solved by the rise of forest camps and urban slums while in Spain’s Almeria region, migrant laborers are toiling in a plastic sea of greenhouses. “In the topsy-turvy logic of this transnational phenomenon, it is not surprising that informal underground camps emerge side-by-side with gigantic transnational development projects like the construction of the Tanger-Med port near Tangier, or that tourist flows on the island of Lampedusa are channeled through control areas shared by asylum management facilities,” remarks Biemann. Supranational bodies such as the UN Refugee Agency are brought in to manage the growing numbers of refugees and assume amazing powers when they are left to decide on the status and destination of people often without any proven citizenship.
This hybrid exhibition, a mix of videos, photographs, conference and a fully illustrated catalog, aims at the awakening of a transnational and political consciousness which can oppose the restrictive measures of mobility control imposed by European countries. The Maghreb Connection has brought together a multi-national group of artists and scholars: Cairene artists working on immigration from China or emigration from Italy, European artists doing fieldwork in the Maghreb and Sahel, Spanish activists living in Morocco and Maghrebi scholars doing research in France.
The visual exhibits focus on the physical landscape, the built space, the cultural tradition and the singular acts of living people such as the subtlety of a visitor’s gaze or the dramatic decision of choosing a migratory route. This brings to mind the perception of human space and how it is shaped. It also underlines the creation of what Biemann calls “counter-geography,” in which the subversive, informal and irregular practices of space take place, the ones that happen despite state forces and supranational regulations.
The notion of location is fundamental to this project and that is why Cairo was chosen as the exhibition’s site. Seen from Cairo, a major hub of Arabic culture, the Maghreb is where the sun sets: The west meaning the Muslim Mediterranean countries of North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya). Anything west of Egypt is Mashrek (Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria), “so that Cairo assumes an oddly similar position to Greenwich nominated by another empire as the point from which to divide and measure the world. However we can no longer perceive the world from a singular location of power, and it is doubtful that anyone ever could,” says Biemann.
The Maghreb Connection carries a strong message, Viewers are not only asked to see and hear but also to THINK. Three issues dominate. First we should ask ourselves what are the military, economic and ecological factors that contribute to the instability, or the unliveability of African countrysides and cities, leaving increasing numbers of their residents little choice but to seek new lives elsewhere. The second issue has to do with the nature of African migration. Why is it so dramatically stigmatized, when entire sectors of the European economy depend on black labor. “The short-term electoral benefits to be gained from the increasingly blatant racism of certain European politicians is already extracting its inevitable toll in the form of hypocrisy and social unconsciousness. Yet those dependencies are destined to take on increasing importance as Europe’s working population grows inexorably older,” explains Biemann. The final issue concerns the migrants themselves. Why do they choose to migrate? Are they perceived as political refugees, human beings looking for work, hordes of invaders or pitiful victims? Can their voices become part of a solution? Are decision makers in Europe and the Maghreb ready to listen to them?
This powerful exhibition tackles a regional problem that is turning into a global one. Artistic instincts are used to arouse a social consciousness too often tampered by the blinding diktats of our modern consumer society.
