The art site Artsy places Rabat among the temples of street art, alongside Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Melbourne.
Rabat is among the cities where it is good to be a street artist, according to Artsy, a site specializing in artistic news. The capital of Morocco rubs shoulders with some of the world’s largest metropolises, including Hong Kong, Los Angeles, and Melbourne. « In Morocco, art has been accessible on the streets and in public spaces since antiquity with the zellige tiles, meticulously carved wood, and Arabic calligraphy that adorn the mosques and medinas of Rabat, Marrakech, Fez and Casablanca » writes Artsy.
Rabat owes its new status as a « street-arty » city to the Jidar festival, co-initiated in 2015 by the National Museum Foundation and the Casablanca association EAC-L’Boulevard. Inspired by the concept of Sbagha Bagha, Jidar invites artists to decorate public spaces with gigantic frescoes. The young festival has two rather successful editions to its credit. Argentinian street artist Jaz explains to Artsy that “Rabat is one of the cities where I received good feedback from residents.” Okuda, a Spanish artist who also participated in Jidar, confides that in the capital, « you work more for the community, and you feel how your work positively changes people« .
The administrative capital has begun its arty turn for several years now, thanks to ambitious cultural projects. Among them, we include the brand new building of the national library inaugurated in 2008, or the opening with great fanfare in 2014 of the museum of modern and contemporary art, the construction of which had been dragging on for a decade.
Other huge projects are planned for 2018. These include the large theater whose plans were drawn up by the Iraqi-English architect Zaha Hadid (who died in 2016), the museum of archeology and earth sciences, the library of the national archives of the kingdom, but also the house of arts and culture among others.
Source: as is
