The 2023 edition of Ch[a]rita, entitled Mirages of Resistance , unfolded across Marrakech as a series of artistic interventions, performances, screenings, workshops, conversations, and collective gatherings dedicated to exploring the political, social, and imaginative dimensions of public space. Building on the program’s ongoing commitment to situated artistic practices, the edition investigated how urban environments can become sites of resistance, memory, and collective reappropriation. At the heart of this edition was a reflection on the growing mechanisms of alienation that shape contemporary cities. Faced with the privatization of public resources, the enclosure of communal spaces, ecological crises, and forms of social fragmentation, Mirages of Resistance asked how art might help recover collective agency and create opportunities for imagining alternative futures. Drawing inspiration from Henri Lefebvre’s concept of the “right to the city,” the program sought to reclaim public space not only as a physical territory but also as a shared social, cultural, and political practice. Over several weeks, artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners transformed gardens, streets, squares, construction sites, and everyday urban environments into temporary platforms for experimentation and dialogue. Installations, performances, participatory workshops, sound walks, screenings, and public conversations invited audiences to engage actively with questions of memory, water, architecture, displacement, ecology, tourism, and collective life. A significant component of the program was the development of new artistic commissions and research projects by participating artists, whose practices addressed diverse yet interconnected themes. Through archives, oral histories, speculative fiction, participatory design, sound, movement, and public intervention, the artists examined the ways cities are produced, inhabited, remembered, and transformed. Their works highlighted forms of resilience and appropriation already present within local communities while opening new spaces for dialogue and collective imagination. The notion of the mirage became a guiding image throughout the edition. Fragile and fleeting, mirages reveal the instability of what appears fixed and challenge dominant perceptions of reality. In this spirit, Ch[a]rita 2023 proposed artistic practice as a means of uncovering hidden narratives, questioning inherited structures, and imagining new possibilities for living together. Through moments of gathering, exchange, and shared experience, Mirages of Resistance  transformed public space into a laboratory for critical reflection and collective dreaming.