Martine DERAIN 

Echo Larmitaj, a worksite in Casablanca
A book by Martine Derain, published by The Editions Le Fennec, Casablanca | Collection Poche Patrimoine | 2006

Hermitage Park, adjacent to Casablanca town centre, is a very small territory: the 18 hectares owned by the Municipality is one of the rare green areas within the economic capital of Morocco, home to a population of more than 5 million. It is situated next to the working class areas of Nouvelle Medina, Derb Foqara and El-Miter Bouchentouf, the centre of the resistance to Hassan II and the French colonization. Created during the French protectorate and then later abandoned to become a public wasteland, the area has recently aroused considerable attention. Citizens, artists and politicians joined desires and interests to save the site. Thus they have been able to launch a major restoration project, one of many that are currently in progress to restore and protect the heritage of Casablanca within the frame of what is commonly called “the emergence of the citizen’s society in Morocco”.

The story begins in 1999 when citizens joined artists to attract the attention of local authorities: political opponent Abdellah Zaâzâa in the El Miter Bouchentouf Association for Social Development and film director Eymeric Bernard produce short documentaries and organize the projection of films in the park and surrounding vicinity. In 2002 an association of artists, the Source du Lion, created by Hassan Darsi, designed a collective art project. They construct a 100th scale model of the entire Hermitage site which cover an area of more than 18 square meters. This model has become, as its designers had hoped, a key factor in the instigation of the rehabilitation work and was exhibited in May 2003 at the Villa des Arts, one of the only locations exhibiting contemporary art in the city. On the opening day of the exhibition, the Wali of Grand Casablanca, Mr M’Hamed Dryef, publically cut the tape to inaugurate the worksite in the park. Two weeks later thousands of tons of rubbish were evacuated. During the following four years, because of the involvement of artists and politicians and with the support given by local inhabitants, an extraordinary situation has been established where both reflection and actions have been created to demonstrate the range of comprehensive possibilities based on a multiple and local expertise… I have chosen to bring my account to a close on the eve of the beginning of the “major” rehabilitation work in the park as it has now recovered its former status as an area of outstanding natural beauty, “devoted to the pleasure of the senses” and never again to be abandoned or left to the mercy of property developers. The Mohamed VI Foundation for the protection of the environment has decided to allocate a team of landscape gardeners and architects to the area and work is supposed to begin during the first months of 2008.
This book was born from an invitation I received from the Source du Lion during a workshop that had brought together Moroccan and European artists around the exhibition of the model. Everyone had been invited to propose a project. I chose to produce a pocket book that would aim to question and convey this experience – but all the questions raised here echo those that I ask myself throughout my own artwork concerning the construction of a story or the representation of a territory… or quite simply, life. What can an individual do? Here I have worked the different materials that I prefer: words, information, photographs, documents… I chose to highlight the tiniest details, the smallest gestures – which despite their size have all been fundamentally important instigators. I established the format of this collective account over three periods of writing during residences when I met the participants of this project. The Editions Le Fennec in Casablanca have agreed to publish my book: it is the first number of their new collection, Poche Patrimoine. A small book, at a reasonable price, available in the town centre as well as in small local bookshops, a little book I would like to imagine as being an invitation to stroll under the Eucalyptus trees in the park… and to act, here and elsewhere?

Martine Derain

Text in French, English, Arabic. 256 pages, 103 pictures in black and white, 23 in colour.


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