The City as a Canvas - Casablanca (Dar El Beïda الدار البيضاء)

The City as a Canvas - Casablanca (Dar El Beïda الدار البيضاء) The City as a Canvas is an ongoing series documenting the rise of or the tradition of Street Art in its many forms in cities around the world. As a continuum from other series in Paris, London, Hanoi, Beijing, Los Angeles and Sydney; Casablanca (Dar El Beïda الدار البيضاء) brings together an overview of the city’s public artwork and graffiti as it stands in 2024. Casablanca’s (Dar El Beïda الدار البيضاء) planning and its particular urban architecture, a low rise concrete apartment block from the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, built long before the onset of modern steel and glass facades, lends themselves to large blank white canvases that often abut the city’s streets and avenues. Over the past few years, through public art programs run by the city’s administration or wilaya under the umbrella of #wecasablanca and #casamuja , the city’s blank walls have seen a stunning and colourful transformation depicting aspects of Moroccan culture, it’s people and it’s avant garde . It’s sometimes humourous, comic, outer worldly, more recently depicting it’s football prowess and stars or a distinctly rich mix of Pop and Moroccan culture. 

As it stands, The City as a Canvas – Casablanca, is mainly a retrospective of works undertaken over the five years preceding 2024 with a scattering of less formal graffiti from the Old Medina and surrounds in Bourgogne.