Academy and collectives

A few days later, we returned to Tétouan—former capital of the Spanish protectorate, located southeast of Tangier, and home to the Institut National des Beaux-Arts, which was founded in 1945 and is now managed by the Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom of Morocco. INBA is the only school in the area dedicated to art. Hence students from all over the country have to go through a tough selection process to get in. Thanks to the mediation of artist and teacher Younes Rahmoun, we could meet those who attend the school to better understand its organization, the methods applied, and how art is actually perceived by Moroccan society.

From our conversations we could easily gather the students’ urgent need to fill the gap that opens up after their studies, to extend their education beyond school, to nourish their practice while creating a context for new content. However they do it, the common tendency is to form collectives, in which students can further their education by exchanging ideas and learning from each other. They might also involve their families, and bring their research—right because of the lack of dedicated spaces—in unusual places, and in close contact with the everyday life of the potential audience of their work.