Recently the Beauty Without Irony team went to Essaouira (Morocco) to prepare for our forthcoming exhibition entitled AIR/PORT wich will happen in Essaouira this coming summer (2013) and in Antwerp the following summer (2014). On this trip we were able to meet with the governor of the province of Essaouira, Abdelouahhab El Jabri who is excited and will be supporting the project. We also were able to meet Mr. André Azoulay, the senior advisor of King Mohammed VI of Morocco, who also expressed a lot of enthusiasm and will be personally advocation for the project and offered the support of his foundation Dar Souiri. We were also able to meet with the Délégué proviniciale du Ministère de la Culture in Essaouira, Ms. Zhor Amhaouch, who also expressed a lot of enthusiasm and support for the project. Other people w were able to meet, with who will be partnering up with to realize the project are Mickaël Faure (Alliance Franco-Marocaine), Alain and Francoise Graffe (Damgaard Gallery), Sébastien-Jean Deflandre (Ocean Vagabond café), Francoise Belhaoui and Marie Claude Zusatz (Au coeur De Lamitié) and finally Fatima Azzahra Aboueloeafa (Sofitel Mogador). It was a very productive and uplifting trip, there are a lot of enthusiasm and excitement among our partners and so are we.
AIR/PORT is an exhibition Beauty Without Irony is organizing to take place in Essaouira(Morocco) during the summer of 2013 and in Antwerp (Belgium) during the summer of 2014. The expo will unite local (Moroccan and Belgian) and international professional artists, as well as young people of both cities in celebration of the special aspects of both cities and most importantly in helping concretely some of Essaouira’s disadvantaged youth get on their feet and begin a professional life. Inspired by two of the most prominent features of Essaouira, the wind (Air) and the Port, the expo will exhibit artwork that exploits and features these two elements, in the most picturesque venues of Essaouira and Antwerp. These artworks will be printed on flags that will align major avenues in both cities, as well as some of the historic and culturally significant part of both cities. The original artworks themselves will be exhibited in galleries and cultural institutions during the expo. Some of the artworks will be auctioned at the end, with the money going to a local NGO Au Coeur de l’Amitié specifically into their program of helping marginalized youth find a vocation and begin their professional lives. There are significant amount of kids in Essaouira living in precarious situations: abandoned to their own means, in a family too big for their parents to support, in difficult family situations… Au Coeur De L’ Amitié feeds, takes care and assures their education. Over the last 10 years, Au Coeur De ‘Amitié has received children at lunch time and after school, provides them with food, school materials, medical help, educators and a stable social structure to grow up in. The next step, the foundation wants to take is help the elder kids of the foundation find their vocation and start them on an autonomous professional journey. The money raised at the end of the exhibition will go into sponsoring this program