The Greenhouse
2014 -
A platform for experimentation at the crossroads of contemporary art and botany.
News
Project history
Installed at the Atelier de l'Observatoire in Laasilat, a rural area in the Bouskoura region, the Greenhouse seeks to recreate the ideal conditions for artistic and cultural development, in an environment often hostile to such initiatives, just like vegetables and flowers housed in a recreated universe favourable to their growth. It has been converted to play host to performances, experimentation, workshops and interventions by artists, researchers, botanists and scientists throughout the year.
From 2015, the greenhouse has functioned as a mobile space. It has been installed in urban and suburban public spaces for in-situ projects, inviting artists and participants to approach a certain independence in their thinking processes and creation by freeing themselves from all-too-often constraining exterior influences, and to develop outside of these imposed constraints. The Greenhouse seeks to support – and question - artistic and cultural production, independent of political, economic and social constraints.
The greenhouse has been installed at the following locations :
Centre Culturel les Etoiles de Sidi Moumen, Casablanca – November 2014
Arab League Park, Casablanca– May 2015
Cyber Park, Marrakech – February 2016
Forthcoming locations :
Hay Mohammadi, Derb Moulay Cherif, Casablanca – May 2016
Théâtre des Brigittines, Bruxelles – June 2016
The Greenhouse
The Greenhouse is an open and participative ephemeral space measuring between 150m2 and 200m2 which is installed in the public space. which seeks to welcome and support the development of nex projects, voices and ideas, sheltered from dominant visions. The Greenhouse invites the general public, artists, students, researchers, cultural operators, scientists and local residents to collectively invest this shared space, to carry out and participate in meetings, screenings, listening sessions, project presentations, workshops, radio shows and other artistic interventions.
The Greenhouse includes a library, a meeting and screening area, workshops, a photo studio, a listening point, and a small café with wifi and picnic rugs.
The Greenhouse is an artist project by Mohamed Fariji, developed through the Atelier de l'Observatoire since 2014.
Archives
The Greenhouse x The Greenhouse, Ahuntsic, Montréal (2023) CANADA
The Greenhouse on the roof, Hay Mohammadi, Casa (2018) MOROCCO
The Greenhouse of Brigittine's Garden, Brussels, (2016) BELGIUM
The Greenhouse x The Greenhouse
September 23 to 24, Ahunstic, Montreal
For this 2023 edition, The Greenhouse by Atelier de l'Observatoire joins forces with The Greenhouse - performing arts, for meetings, family activities, artistic performances and open-air cinema, from 23 to 24 September 2023 in the Ahunstic district of Montreal . L'Atelier de l'Observatoire and The Greenhouse - performing arts have in common that they support emerging, alternative and innovative artistic approaches that honour the links between performative gestures and society.
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The Horizonta Greenhouse
december 2022, Casablanca
La Serre Horizonta raises questions about art history research in the Maghreb. Who tells the story? What are the marginalized, unexplored areas of research? How can we teach art to our children? Who are the great figures of modern and contemporary art in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia? Who are the forgotten and invisible figures? What does this history of art, with its omissions and gaps, say about us? Horizonta seeks to develop an approach encompassing the Maghreb as a regional space for creation and shared artistic reflection.
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The Greenhouse on the roof
Nov-Dec 2018, Hay Mohammadi, Casablanca
The Greenhouse on the roof is an open and participatory ephemeral space that is set up in public spaces and on rooftops, and has the function of welcoming and enabling the emergence of new voices and ideas. The GREENHOUSE is set up to welcome local residents, artists, students and invited researchers and specialists for listening sessions, readings, meetings, interventions, screenings and exhibitions.
This autumn, the GREENHOUSE open a residence on the roof of the Initiative Urbaine neighborhood association in HAY MOHAMMADI.
As part of the COLLECTIF MUSEUM project
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The Alhadiqa GreenHouse, Arab League Park
May 2022, Parc de la ligue Arabe, Casablanca
For 6 days, from May 17 to 22, the SERRE offers a space for shared reflection, a free café, participatory workshops, country walks, audiovisual screenings and meetings. It will be open to all for formal and informal meetings and dialogues between citizens, artists, cultural operators, political decision-makers and others. These complementary activities will explore the various intellectual, artistic and sensory dimensions of the park.
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The Greenhouse, El Firdaous
March 7-15, 2020, Oulfa, Casablanca
For 8 days (March 7 to 14) in the Al Firdaous district, the GREENHOUSE offer a shared workspace, a free café, an information desk on contemporary art, participatory workshops, a library, audiovisual screenings and meetings. It will be open to all for formal and informal encounters and dialogues between citizens, artists, cultural operators, political decision-makers and others. Workshops will be held in parallel with the general public (students, young artists, residents of the Firdaous - Oulfa district) and will culminate in the production of films, works and publications.
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December 2017, Aïn Chock, Casablanca
In December 2017, the SERRE will move to the Grand Jardin Aïn Chock opposite the Cinéma Sahara. This edition will be entirely dedicated to the Musée Collectif project and the research being carried out into the neighborhood's collective memory.
On the program: meetings, screenings, exhibitions, Serre radio, children's workshops, neighborhood newspaper, itineraries, the painting machine, Kabareh Cheikhats, Ammi Driss show, etc.
As part of the MUSEE COLLECTIF, AIN CHOCK project
The GreenHouse, Jardin des Brigittines
September 2016, Bruxelles
"Located on the edge of an unusual neighborhood, this garden must above all become a space for ideas. Its ambition must present itself as a place of relationships between human beings, art, ecology, biology, botany, history, literature, sociology...(...) I hope the local residents will make it their own."
Benoit Fondu, landscape designer. Les Brigittines, Residences and garden
A reappropriation initiated in June 2014 by Marollywood: public workshops, so many artistic gestures, events and rules of the game patiently co-written for this space apart, declared a COLLECTIVE AUTONOMOUS ZONE by the group. To explore new avenues for the project together, Marollywood invites Casablanca's LA SERRE for a public week of North/South exchanges based on our crossed URBAN ACTIONS.
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The Greenhouse, Arab League Park
May 2015, Casablanca
In 2015, artist Mohamed Fariji invited a group of artists, curators, researchers and filmmakers to set up and inhabit the Greenhouse, conceived as a semi-secret and ephemeral space measuring 150m2 at the heart of the Arab League Park in Casablanca. The Greenhouse was made up of a space for co-working and meetings, a free refreshment area, a library, a “young creative” space and a photo studio. Every day, permaculture and guerrilla gardening workshops, performances, on-site installations, and also the presentation of utopic/impossible/dream projects by artists, researchers and filmmakers were carried out for an audience of passers-by, students, school children, associations and Casablancan citizens. A radio show and Greenhouse newspaper documented the project throughout.
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May 2016, Hay Mohammadi, Casablanca
In May 2016, La Serre is offering a space open to all, with a shared workspace, a free café, participatory workshops, a library, screenings, performances and meetings, in the Hay Mohammadi neighborhood of Casablanca, in partnership with the Initiatives Urbaines association.
As part of THE GREENHOUSE project.
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2014, Casablanca
In 2014, the Greenhouse was installed at the Etoiles de Sidi Moumen cultural centre (on the outskirts of Casablanca), with the aim to collectively rethink the city and its functions, and to seek to recover urban and suburban spaces. Taking the form of workshops, research, collective creation and contemporary artist interventions with local inhabitants (making and throwing seedbombs, collective reflection on green spaces now used as rubbish tips or parking lots, cartoons, design, recycling, creation of a shared garden, culinary design, mini-publications, etc), the Greenhouse took its first steps within Casablanca.
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February 2016, Marrakech
In February 2016, the Greenhouse was set up in the centre of Marrakesh during the Marrakesh Biennale, with a library of texts, images and sounds open to all, in addition to a program of meetings, lectures, performances, screenings and workshops. The Greenhouse, implemented by a group of institutions working in Morocco such as Afrique in visu, le 18, Saout Radio, le Cube and l’Observatoire, becomes in this way an alternative space in which to collectively reflect on modes of production and the dissemination of art projects, and to present works in progress.
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The educational Greenhouse, Laasilat
2013 and 2014, Casablanca
With a surface area of over 200m2, the SERRE is installed year-round at the Atelier de l'Observatoire in a rural setting (30km from Casablanca), which also includes the Atelier (work space), the Cabane (residence space), the Vegetable Garden (permaculture space) and the Children's Playground.
The SERRE aims to recreate the ideal conditions for artistic and cultural development in an often hostile environment.
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