Initiated in 2019 by Rim Mejdi and Francesca Masoero, Dar Bellarj’s Collective Workshops | الورشات الجماعية were conceived as an alternative school, a space for creation, knowledge transmission, and experimentation around ideas, knowledge, and imaginaries. Inspired by contextual and vernacular forms of knowledge transmission, their methodology seeks to bring these forms into dialogue with new languages, particularly those of contemporary art.Taking place throughout the year, the Collective Workshops | الورشات الجماعية are addressed to the broad Dar Bellarj community, composed of children, adolescents, and, in particular, mothers living in the Medina of Marrakech. They are distinguished by the diversity of their formats and approaches.Emerging from the questions and fractures that run through and shape the city, these workshops take the form of temporary assemblies, working groups, and spaces for horizontal learning that encourage the exchange of knowledge, tools, and experiences between participants and invited practitioners.From this perspective, the Collective Workshops | الورشات الجماعية constitute an ongoing space for collective exploration, enabling the activation and reinterpretation of Marrakech’s living heritage and ancestral cultures, carried above all by its inhabitants. By placing their voices at the forefront, the workshops seek to rethink ways of preserving and transmitting collective memory and the values embodied by this heritage, in order to foster new spaces of the commons and ways of living based on solidarity and care.The workshops thus become spaces for experimentation where different forms of expression intersect and new shared meanings emerge, moving beyond often rigid and opposing categories such as vernacular, scientific, artistic, artisanal, traditional, or contemporary. They are spaces for research, creation, and knowledge transmission where ideas are given time to grow, while contributing to repairing social and cultural fragmentations and nurturing a collective transformation grounded in generosity, cultural continuity, and emancipation.Since their creation, the Collective Workshops | الورشات الجماعية have developed in dialogue with LE 18, Dar Bellarj’s sister organization, and particularly with the action-research conducted by the collective platform QANAT. Over the years, they have also been enriched through encounters and collaborations with several artistic projects developed within the framework of Ch[a]rita | السِّيس.Partially reflecting this evolution, over the years, eight thematic lines have gradually crystallized as areas of focus for our collaborative action-research interests. Browse through our INDEX below to discover more. Two of these lines have also led to more ambitious and permanent projects at Dar Bellarj: The Speculative Garden of Dar Bellarj and The Community Archives of Dar Bellarj.