Billboard Project

BILLBOARD FESTIVAL CASABLANCA occupied 63 gigantic billboards (4 x 3 m) in the heart of the Moroccan metropolis. The project gave Nordic and Moroccan women artists an unusual platform, in which thousands of inhabitants saw the billboards every day and had their conventional ideas about city space, gender, and identity challenged.

The billboards gave women artists the opportunity to express themselves on their own terms in a project in North Africa, which sought to build bridges between different cultures. The hope was, to quote the closing dialogue of the film Casablanca, that the festival would mark “the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

Apart from making the visions of female visual artists visible, BILLBOARD FESTIVAL CASABLANCA also presented stories and images in central locations in the city, which were completely different from the adverts which usually dominate the streets in many of the world’s cities.

A comprehensive festival programme ran alongside the project, featuring artist talks, video screenings, performances and panel discussions in the Villa des Arts de Casablanca.