CANCELLED - Launch of the publication 'Space is the place' and conversation with Laila Hida, Yassine Rachidi and Madani Ait Ouhanni

In this project, Yassine Rachidi, the publication's editorial coordinator, weaves myth through the past, present, and future, creating a dialogue between it and port cities and their urban imaginaries. Combining myth with both past and future, the conversations and essays in this editorial explore the imagined and the imaginable as they are embodied in the present-day realities of African port cities.

The launch of the editorial will take place in the presence of Madani Ait Ouhanni, the last living member of the crew of the RA II, a legendary expedition carried out on board a papyrus ship, which departed from the port of Safi in May 1970. This audacious adventure, initiated by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, aimed to prove that Egyptian civilizations were in contact with pre-Columbian, Mayan and Incan civilizations.

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Yassine Rachidi is an artist and researcher living and working between Montreal, Basel, and the Maghreb region. His research-based, space-oriented, and multidisciplinary practice includes fiction writing, photography, and sound work. He is particularly interested in exploring the complex intersections between spatial imaginaries and built environments.

Laila Hida is a Moroccan artist and cultural worker based in Marrakech. She is primarily interested in images and photography, exploring their use both as archival material and as a catalyst for fiction. Her recent work, "The Journey of the Phoenix," explores the use of photography, literature, and film as tools to distill the regimes of desire in the 20th century.

In 2013, she founded LE 18 Marrakech, a multidisciplinary cultural space and artist residency located in the medina of Marrakech, which extends her long-term intention to question and explore the impact of the environment on artistic production, mediation, and research approaches.

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