Bahija El Hachami, director of the Mohamed Drissi Contemporary Art Gallery
Bahija El Hachami, director of the Mohamed Drissi Contemporary Art Gallery within the Regional Directorate of Culture in Tangier, tells us about the participation of this gallery in the third edition of the Night of Museums and Cultural Spaces 2024 as well as its activities and preparations for the next cultural year 2024-2025.
ALM : As director of the Mohamed Drissi Gallery, what does your participation in this third night mean to you?
Bahija El Hachami : We are happy at the Mohamed Drissi Gallery to be part again this year among museums and cultural spaces in Tangier and other cities of the Kingdom, participants in this night, organized, Friday June 21, by the National Foundation museums, the Jardin Majorelle Foundation and the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication. We are used to making our contribution to the animation of this event, since its launch in June 2022. It has become over its three editions a very important meeting, which attracts a large number of lovers of the arts. and culture.
What do you have planned for this Night?
We had the honor of participating, this year, in this event with a beautiful collective exhibition of four Moroccan visual artists, notably Abdelghafour El Meftouhi, Mohamed El Bouchti, Zineb Alami and Fadwa El Bantil whom I greatly appreciate for their talent and their sense of artistic creation. It was an opportunity to celebrate this night through a selection of artworks from these four artists and allow visitors to enjoy a summer atmosphere filled with creativity and beauty.
Is the main theme of this collective exhibition related to that of this third Night?
As you know, we have scheduled this collective exhibition for the month of June, which coincides with this third Night. We were invited, like other museums and cultural spaces in Morocco, to take part through presentations of works and activities with various themes. It was also an opportunity for visitors to discover the diversity and richness of the artistic scene in the Kingdom.
What are your most important activities for this cultural season?
The Mohamed Drissi Contemporary Art Gallery is increasingly in demand in the artistic community. It occupies a beautiful space in a building marked with history, which dates from 1890 and over time served as the headquarters of the Regional Directorate of Culture in Tangier. It bears the name of the great Moroccan painter Mohamed Drissi and its inauguration in 2007 was a major event with the exhibition of ceramic pieces and drawings by the famous Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. Our activities are based on exhibitions of great Moroccan and foreign creators with a very significant artistic background, but we also try to present new artists in order to help them evolve and support them in the promotion of their works.
Do you have new plans for the end of this season or the next cultural year?
We are planning an exhibition of works by Iraqi artist Chaker Nouri for next August. And it is an exception to open in this month since most Tangiers and art lovers go on vacation during this summer period. It is a beautiful exhibition of this artist who is initially a writer and journalist and was able to develop his ambition, as he likes to say, during his presence at the Moussem of Assilah and through his art workshops. Like every year, the regional cultural directorate prepares a program rich in activities, where it integrates those of the Mohamed Drissi Gallery. We were already working on the programming of the next cultural year 2024-2025 and we plan to open up even more to talented Moroccan artists living and working abroad. For this next school year, we are planning an exhibition by three Moroccan artists residing in France and Belgium.
