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Athens Design Forum and Isabella Barkett present ‘THE ECHO OF THE FEAST THAT CALLS ME’, a double-screening of  Izza Genini’s Aïta (1988, 26’) and Hicham Gardaf’s In Praise of Slowness (2023, 17’).

Athens Design Forum’s 2023-24 season, ‘ANTHROPOS-TOPOS’, is guided by deciphering how humans coexist with places at the proxy of design, informed by the laboring body. The medium of film acts as a space for re-inscription – design principles are reunited with the sphere of personhood, identity, and collectivity. The film program’s theme for Milan Design Week 2024 bears its name from a line of Aïta (The echo of the feast that calls me), encapsulating the soundscapes of the Moussem of Moulay Abdallah and the peripheral sites of action that deeply inform and penetrate the ritual of gathering.

In the private realm, cheikhates (female traveling musicians) transform elements such as plastic water bottles into informal drums. They transgress and embody the symbolic significance of temporary tent architecture – built emblems that accompany their shared movement around the country. Genini ushers in the role of performance as a conduit to expand onto the public realm, a social role reserved solely in times of the cheikhate’s animation. 

Gardaf’s In Praise of Slowness identifies the thresholds of design implications, expounded upon the body. The culture of the bleach sellers in Tangier, Morocco,  is shared through a meditation on the morphology of the urban landscape. Space unfolds to witness time at the lapse of tradition. Through the peripheral coexistence of forms – sonic, bodily, and artifact – Gardaf explores the lasting demise of a capricious market. 

Sonic landscapes form a central inquiry towards identifying social hierarchies of power — from the bleach seller’s occupation of public space through his laments, and Genini’s ritualistic approach to cheikhate’s collective call.

The aforementioned programming marks the first time the films will be shown in Milan. With extended gratitude to DOPO? Cultural Space @dopo.space and Clara Zevi.

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Aïta (Dir. Izza Genini, 1988, 26 minutes)

Interpreted by cheikhate (female traveling musicians), aïta is the cry that becomes song, song which becomes call: cry to pain, call to memory, call to transcendence. The aïta is a cry of love and hope. With Moroccan cheikha Fatna Bent El Hocine and her troupe Oulad Ben Aguida.

–––– A pioneering woman in Moroccan cinema, Izza Génini’s practice sits within the realm of narrative documentary. As someone who was born in Morocco, grew up in France and returned there as an adult, her films grapple with themes such as diasporic identity and traditional Moroccan heritage, particularly focusing on the music of the country. Izza has spoken about her filmmaking practice as being geared towards instinct and feeling, and this can be clearly seen in the vivacious energy of her films. Her presence shines through, showing a familiarity, but with an excitement that is almost infectious. Biography courtesy Myriam Mouflih.

In Praise of Slowness (Dir. Hicham Gardaf, 2023, 17 minutes)

In the face of the global economic and technological forces reshaping the city of Tangier, the profession of the bleach vendors seems to be on the verge of disappearance, yet this filmic portrait of their supply chain—and notably their insistent chanting—conveys acoustic and visual images of endurance. In Praise of Slowness speaks to the accelerated urbanisation and industrialisation of Tangier, but also attests to how locally situated choreographies of Slowness articulate modes of resistance to the speed of capitalism.

–––– Hicham Gardaf is a Moroccan artist based in London. He works across photography and film, using them as vehicles to engage people in critical conversations with their immediate environment. A large part of Hicham’s practice delves into transformations of contemporary landscape in relation to time, space, and politics of place. He is particularly drawn to the social spaces we inhabit, such as buildings, streets, and cities, and he researches the practices we apply to these places by reshaping, appropriating, and controlling them. Gardaf is the winner of the 2023 MAST Photography Prize, with his work shown at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Towner Eastbourne, Eastbourne; MACAAL, Marrakech, Guest Projects, London; International Center of Photography, New York; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. hichamgardaf.com

Curatorial Team

Athens Design Forum, founded by researcher and curator Katerina Papanikolopoulos, is a non-profit advocating for overlooked and generative design histories interwoven with global labor and migration patterns. Prioritizing film programming as an integral, critical methodology to decipher design’s social role, ADF has since collaborated with initiatives including Shasha Movies (Global), Yugantar Collective (India), and Directors Martá Rodriquez (Colombia) and Menelaos Karamaghiolis (Greece).  @athensdesignforum

Isabella Barkett is a Lebanese-Danish film curator, researcher and producer based in London. As a founding employee of the independent streaming and distribution service, Shasha Movies and Habibi Collective, she has curated and produced film programmes at international institutions and festivals relating to Southwest Asia and North Africa diaspora, and the mobility of personal and community identity in architecture and intangible heritage.  Through this, Isabella explores the interwoven space between physical and perceptual through cinema clubs and has conducted extensive research uncovering what is meant by traditional exhibition or cinematic spaces, in the context of uncovering new modes of impactful visitor interaction.  Isabella works as Researcher for Barker Langham’s team in the UK and Middle East, and holds a BA in Comparative Literature in Arabic and French from the University of California, Los Angeles and continues to work alongside Middle East Archive, and support new directorial voices through production.

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