Those workshops, held from 26 to 29 April, 2016, and led by the Moroccan artist Khalid Assallami, consist of creating a wall mural painting collectively with students (from 9 to 12 years old) from several public schools in Granada.
The workshop aims at teaching students techniques of traditional art which uses natural materials like soil, wood and straw. The workshop seeks to use art in order to get students closer to one of the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, the Amazigh culture, which is geographically close to us but, at the same time, distant due to lack of knowledge regarding it.
Students are supposed to carry out a wall mural painting following the artist’s orientation and combining artistic patterns with ancient ancestral signs present in everyday life of Southern Mediterranean people. For such purpose, students will make use of some symbols found on Berbers’ carpets, tattoos, ceramics, jewelry and architecture (facades, doors and windows). These are magical geometric shapes which reflect happiness and joy and, at the same time, cast curses. As well, students will apply engravings and rock carvings from the Mediterranean area, as well as the Tifinagh, one of the most ancient writings in the world.
The Amazigh thought has always been linked to the land, to the history of ancestors. This culture, this language, these myths, all of these symbols and aesthetic values are hidden in the form of skills, capabilities, behaviors, lifestyle and way of communicating.
Those wall mural paintings will use red soil obtained from the Llano de la Perdiz, an area located very near to our city and to the Alhambra.
KHALID ASSALLAMI - THE ARTIST
Plastic artist, born in Agadir (Morocco). Assallami enjoys certain passion for art which he first knew and later developed within his family, Mourabih, who are well-known in the world of painting and theatre and totally devoted to cinema.
