ABOUT THE BILLBOARD FESTIVAL CASABLANCA 2015

In March 2012 Hanne Lise Thomsen realized the billboard-project We Are From Here in Ramallah on the West Bank, and in 2003 the city-wide billboard project Women2003 http://women2003.dk in Copenhagen and Malmo, with 100 female artists from throughout the region.

This is the kind of billboard projects we’d now like to bring to Casablanca, in a new project aimed at creating a free space for reflection and debate on issues of gender and identity, and building bridges between cultures through art. In Billboard Festival Casablanca 2015, Nordic and Moroccan contemporary women artists collaborate to present their own personal and artistic female images in public space.

Billboard Festival Casablanca 2015 focusses on dialogue between Nordic and Arabic women artists. The intercultural dimension adds dynamic and exciting nuances to the billboard theme, since both Morocco and each Nordic country have their own visual and artistic traditions and approaches.

With this project we want to create a more open and innovative city for everyone, and temporarily transform and challenge ideas about urban space through artistic interventions.

HANNE LISE THOMSEN is a visual artist based in Copenhagen. Her art and projects focus primarily on dialogue with the surrounding society: the metropolis provides the platform for many of her projects. The complexity of cities, with their constantly changing atmosphere and multifaceted architectural spaces, is a key starting point and source of inspiration, and guides the overall choreography of each individual project. In recent years she has launched several big projects in public space, among others “Inside Out” site-specifik video projections Copenhagen and the video projection “The Homeless of New York City Wish You All a Happy Holiday”  in New York.

ANETTE ABRAHAMSSON is a painter and Professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Her work has featured widely in both solo and group exhibitions, primarily in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries, where she is represented in a number of museums. Anette Abrahamsons students are taking part in the Billboards Festival.

HIND BENSARI is an economist and political scientist by training, Hind dedicated her life to film-making after the success of her first crowd-funded documentary “Break the Silence” which looks into the fate and perception of rape victims in Hind’s home country, Morocco. Hind Bensari is in charge of liaising with the Moroccan authorities and companies to facilitate the project.

KATJA BJØRN is a video artist. She particularly distinguished herself with a unique form of video sculptures that combine everyday objects in video, in which she explores the interface between the video’s narrative space and sculpture form in relation to the human body. Katja Bjørn is in charge of the event programme in collaboration with The Danish Centre for Research and Information on Gender, Equality and Diversity KVINFO.