Mohammed El Hajoui | The learning by doing of Fabrica
Founded in 1994 in Treviso, Fabrica is a cultural center open to those curious, restless, ambitious, generous talents who experience contemporary communication through a constant contamination between different disciplines, such as photography, design, video, graphics, digital.
Fabrica organizes a continuous cycle of workshops, conferences and experiences where the world of art, culture and research confront each other developing new ideas. Fabrica’s collaborators are architects, musicians, art historians, designers, artists, interaction designers, art directors, sociologists of world renown.
The collaboration between Fabrica and Arte Laguna Prize has been going on for several years, and thanks to it one of the finalist artists of the Prize has the opportunity to access this innovative reality.
The last one to have been welcomed is Mohammed El Hajoui, a young artist of Moroccan origin who will remain in residence until July 2022. The artist’s choice to apply for the Treviso residency is due both to the suggestion of a friend, who had attended the residency in the past and had warmly suggested him to try, and because, as he himself says, the months spent in residence will give him the opportunity to carry out his personal project, “Egira” (which translates as migration / displacement): a series oftables inspired by Arab architecture built around the archetype of the door, a symbol of passage and openness to the unknown and the discovery of alternative visions.
The conception of “Egira” stems from an intrinsic need of the artist to be welcomed and to open up to different cultures. This project will also be the starting point from which the theme of the semester chosen by Fabrica’s staff will be declined (“extinction?” n.d.r.), which he will analyze under the cultural aspect, using the door -keystone of his production- as a starting point to study it under its most symbolic and atavistic aspect while paying homage to his Arab origins.
It is that of the residence an experience, says El Hajoui, which he invites everyone to try; a unique opportunity to expand their knowledge and projects, able to provide new materials from which to develop new and interesting perspectives.
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Thursday 21 July, from 6 to 11 pm, Fabrica will open its doors for JUST PASSING THROUGH, the exhibition on the forms of extinction.
Tadao Ando’s architecture becomes the stage for the works created by the young international group of creatives at the end of the 6-month residency, of which El Hajoui is part of.