Ch[a]rita / السِّيس is a programme of artistic interventions, conversations, screenings and workshops taking place in public, open-air, as well as indoor space[s] in Marrakech.
Inspired by the world-wide children street game of the ch[a]rita (hopscotch), Ch[a]rita adapts to, and engages with the street, producing ephemeral playgrounds in contexts where they would otherwise not exist.
Ch[a]rita / السِّيس is a programme of artistic interventions, conversations, screenings and workshops taking place in public, open-air, as well as indoor space[s].
Rooted in Marrakech, Ch[a]rita / السِّيس carries at its conceptual and methodological core a (self)critical and engaged reflection on the processes of knowledge transmission as carried out by cultural practices, in relation to the complex dynamics that are shaping cities and their ‘margins’.
As a world-wide, un-temporal children street game, the ‘ch[a]rita’ (hopscotch in EN, marelle in FR), or السِّيس is a series of lines, of connections, of intersections creating squares, producing spaces and drawing playgrounds even in contexts where they do not actually exist. It adapts to the street, while shaping its function, its functioning. Inspired by, and drawing from its very name, Ch[a]rita / السِّيس playfully explores the city, its transformations and the many forms of competitive appropriations and narrations that keep making it and remaking it.
Interested in sustaining in particular artistic practices that aim at being open and situated, the project sets the framework for various playful artistic and participative ‘renderings’ of the invited artists brought in dialogue with the action-research carried out by QANAT (LE 18) and the Ateliers Collectifs (Dar Bellarj).Thus, Ch[a]rita / السِّيس activates symbolic (and material) processes of grass-root appropriation, translation and redefinition of Marrakech identity and its spatial configurations, reinventing forms of knowledge production and transmission, digging into the past, present and futures of the city’s imaginaries.-Ch[a]rita / السِّيس was initiated in 2018 by Nouha Ben Yebdri, Francesca Masoero and Rim Mejdi. Since 2020, Ch[a]rita / السِّيس has been developed through the support and collaboration between LE 18 (within its programme QANAT) and Dar Bellarj (via the Ateliers Collectifs), in partnership with many other cultural entities.