Artist：Gdeim Izik collective, other artists, and today Isidro López-Aparicio, curator
Date：2007—2010
Location：Tifariti Western Sahara Liberated Territories
Media/Type：MATERIALS: Due to the great diversity of art works, all materials and resources employed were mainly provided locally. They include dry trunks, animal bones, fossils, limestone, clay, sand, plaster, cement and recycled materials, steel rounds, construction cement blocks, jaima’s fabrics, dyed melfas, leftover war materials, and also videos, photographies, and the internet.
Commissioner：ARTifariti is organized by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) Ministry of Culture and the Association of Friendship with the Sahrawi People in Seville (Asociación de Amistad con el Pueblo Saharaui de Sevilla - AAPSS). Collaborations with the following institutions: Junta de Andalucía, Council of Culture; Xunta de Galicia, Council of Culture; Diputación de Málaga; Architects Professional School of Cadiz; La Caixa; Andalusian Contemporay Art Center (CAAC).
Researcher：Giusy Checola
2007 happens to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the Western Sahara War. The goal of this public art project was to proclaim that the people of the Western Sahara are entitled to their land, their culture, their roots and their freedom. The project focused on issues of “regional visibility,” “regional commitment,” “regional hope,” and “regional identity”. The purpose of selecting and creating these works was to help the people of the Western Sahara understand their conflict with the Western world and to earnestly strive to realize the commitment promised by the United Nations 30 years ago of full self-determination.
Of the works produced, some permanent others temporary, all are exhibited outdoors at the Museum of Tifariti. For instance there was the Collective of Argelian Artists (Argel), which painted “Reborn Ruins” in 2008 on the walls of the Hospital of Tifariti, which had been bombed by Morocco during the war and had remained damaged for thirty years. Others underlined the invisible consequences of the war; for example, the isolation of the Sahariwis with the symbolic action “Isolation”. The performance consisted of a man who spent 24 hours in a hole in the desert sand of , and afterward constructed a platform and remained atop the platform throughout the strong winds and ending the performance by spraying water upwards into the air.
Through this project, this locality became known and validated and information about the conflict in the Western Sahara has now spread to the rest of the world. It has created new facilities and benefits for Saharawi artists. It has illustrated the conflict in the Western Sahara for the world and raised social awareness, and the local artists actively threw themselves into creation on site. |
