North Africa’s captivating country of Morocco is filled with art. Architectural gems abound, including stunning mosques and other religious buildings, ornate fountains, exquisite palaces, old fortresses, interesting lighthouses, and other buildings with striking designs. There are plentiful art galleries and museums. Street art can also be found in abundance, adding contemporary and free-to-admire scenes in places that you may not expect. Here’s the lowdown on Morocco’s relatively new street art scene.
Common themes throughout Morocco’s street art
Rabat
Naturally, Rabat has a lot painted walls, many of which remain from several years worth of street art festivals. There’s a faceless man in Berber attire sitting in the desert with a lamp and a rug, rather reminiscent of the tale of Aladdin, gigantic fruit and vegetables, an elderly Moroccan lady, a man battling with a tiger-human hybrid, and a rather ghoulish figure with a lamb. Other examples include a large reptile sitting on a rock, business people in suits wearing high-tech headpieces, representing how people today are becoming chained by technology, and an elderly man and young boy, back to back but joined together by their hair.
Marrakech
Marrakech has lots of street art, both in the old medina and in the colonial part of the city, Gueliz. Opposite the train station, a Berber man peers down onto the streets from the side of a building. Red roses, echoing the city’s nickname as the red city, figures, geometric designs, and abstract shapes were added during the 6th Marrakech Biennale. The French street artist known as C215 has left his mark in the city too, working with stencils and paint to show the close-up features of residents that most people ignore and fail to notice.
Casablanca
In 2012, young street artists and graffiti artists worked hard on transforming Les Abattoirs de Casablanca in Morocco’s financial heart. Some images have been touched up and some are now showing the ravages of time. A stroll through Casablanca’s medina also reveals several interesting painted scenes.
Asilah
Something of a magnet for artists, cute Asilah is known for its abundance of paintings in the medina. Asilah Arts Festival takes place every year, with part of the festival including decoration of local walls. Long after the painters, poets, musicians, story-tellers, and dancers have disappeared, striking pictures remain on the walls for everyone to admire. Vibrant colours contrast with the bright white walls, with some images stretching up several stories and covering several buildings. Make sure to wander away from the main walkways and explore the smaller alleys to see some of the best pieces. There are some that encourage interactive and imaginative photo shoots too, such as a large chair that, if you position yourself just right, you can look as though you’re sitting on.
