We reached a vast field just beyond Casablanca’s limit. Dusty trails wandered toward the center, where they crisscrossed then extended further outward toward mosques, half made tenement blocks and shanty towns. The sun felt metallic hot. Opaque echos of a single prayer call grazed us with the coming breeze. More began to rise, until the many voices braided the air around us. I watched and froze the sprawling urban panorama that vibrated behind heat waves, until the voices faded away.
This past June I spent five weeks in North Africa participating in an art-research project called Beyond Digital: Morocco. As a collaborative, experimental project, each of the seven multi-disciplined participants interpreted a core research theme centered around contemporary Moroccan music and the culture it emerges from. I used this evocative aspect of the culture as a guide to explore the country’s current landscape, both environmental and social.
Morocco is a landscape at the precipice. At the far western edge of the Muslim world, it is both a world unto itself and a historic doorway between Europe, the Middle East and Africa. These varied influences have woven themselves into a unique cultural fabric, marked with sharp contrasts. Today, Western cultural trends, international investment projects and sprawling urban development jostle together with the country’s Muslim and ancient Berber cultures. To this is added the pressing undertone of Morocco’s ambivalent position within the developing Arab Spring.
My goal was to make a series of images which would capture the concurrent dynamics of this contemporary Moroccan landscape. As a foreign artist, I wanted to seek the edges of the landscape that fell away from the ways Morocco is generally represented, allowing the landscape to recount its story through the image-making process. This photographic contribution was one of several media involved in the larger project, from documentary video shorts to software design, each offering its own artistic interpretation, thus creating a multi-faceted experiment in how art and cultural research can work in tandem.
In June, John Francis Peters spent five weeks in North Africa participating in an art-research project called Beyond Digital: Morocco. Meryem by the sea in Casablanca.John Francis PetersTbourida is a traditional equestrian art and simulation of 15th century military tactics. These events are often staged as part of community celebrations in Casablanca.
John Francis PetersMorning view of Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca. One of the world's largest mosques, it holds more than 100,000 worshippers at once. Its construction is estimated to have cost $800 million, and helped revive the dying arts of traditional plaster and mosaic work. The prodigious structure contrasts sharply with much of the urban sprawl surrounding it.
John Francis PetersHandstand, Oulfa district, Casablanca.
John Francis PetersNew housing development in the outskirts of Casablanca. The Moroccan government has been ambitiously building new housing blocks for low-income families with the goal of eradicating the city's remaining shanty-towns, largely inhabited by rural people looking for work in the city. John Francis PetersTrails leading through a large barren field on the city outskirts, Casablanca. As Casablanca grows, areas which were once farmland have become semi-rural wastelands between housing developments. Massive urban expansion consumes vast quantities of natural resources and puts pressure on sanitation and water systems.
John Francis PetersJamila enjoys a summer rain storm in her Berber village situated in the remote Anti-Atlas Mountains in Issafen. The Berber people have resided in North Africa for at least 5000 years and are estimated to make up more than half of the population of Morocco. Their language and culture are only beginning to be formally recognized, after centuries of suppression and disparagement. John Francis PetersKids playing near the town cemetery, Salé.
John Francis PetersThe afternoon crowd on the steps leading to the Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca.
John Francis PetersPostcard stand by the beach at Ain Diab in Casablanca. Morocco's tourism industry has played a large role in national development and ranks as the second largest source of income for the nation after the phosphate industry.John Francis PetersWorkers paint the roof of a resort in the luxurious beach district of Ain Diab in Casablanca.
John Francis PetersSoon to be demolished for a new housing development, an old stable stands as the last remnant of what was formerly an aristocratic land-owning family's farm in Casablanca.
John Francis PetersShanty-town community in Casablanca. The Moroccan government has focused on the goal of eradicating the country's shanty-towns by 2012 but as the the new year approaches, these communities can be found clustered around the edges of many urban areas. John Francis PetersSleeping outside the medina wall in Salé, an ancient city on the bank of the Bou Regreg river, just across from the national capital Rabat. In the 17th century it was an independent pirate republic, home to the notorious "Salé Rovers" who amassed a fortune at the expense of European commercial ships and sailed as far as the Americas.John Francis PetersAhmed climbs the diving wall in Larache.
John Francis PetersCranes working on a new luxury housing development in Casablanca.
John Francis PetersA young man smokes and relaxes at dusk in the Rif Mountains in Chefchaouen. The Rif Mountains are known as one of the largest cannabis-producing regions in the world. While the harvest is mainly used to make hashish for export to Europe, many locals smoke a fine powder called kifi, made of the leftover flowers and stems.
John Francis PetersA worshipper on his way to the Hassan II mosque in Casablanca.
John Francis Peters
