What we got up to in Morocco
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What we got up to in Morocco ꩜
Notes from Marrakech
In February 2026, we took to the pink city, Marrakech.
A week filled with Arts & Culture against the backdrop
of Moroccan winter (24 °C in February, not bad!).
Take a look at Zami Collective’s highlights from the VIP preview of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, the Diaspora Salon hosted at Jnane Tamsna, and from across different corners of Marrakech’s Medina.
The Pulse of an
Art-Filled Week.
1-54 MARRAKECH
A few days each year, the rhythm of Marrakech’s Arts landscape picks up. Artist openings, exhibitions are dotted across the city’s riads and palaces, and collectors from across the world come together.
This year was no different.
La Mamounia hotel transformed into the stage of 1-54 and the global art community was in attendance.
WHAT WE LOVED
C’est là que je t’attendrai
The Senegalese and French Artist featured in Cecile Fakhoury’s group exhibition. At the border between memories and dreams, Rachel Marsil plunges us into an intimate and colourful universe of interior scenes and moments of reunion.
RACHEL MARSIL
PALAIS BAHIA
A Gesture from Elsewhere
The late founder of Beaux-Arts Solidarité Maroc, Iyass Alami Afilal, entrusted curator Farah Maakel with the exhibition bringing together ten artists from Morocco and West Africa and showcase the group exhibition at the Bahia Palace in Marrakech. A Gesture from Elsewhere explores the circulation, translation, and transformation of gestures — whether artistic, social, or poetic. Each work investigates forms of memory that are not written, but transmitted through the body, materials, and practices.
Inside DaDa Marrakech.
In Between Blues
“Without hierarchy, blue weaves a bond where art, craft, design, music, gastronomy, and living together coexist—uniting us and restoring our right to dream, at a time when the sky feels dark.” — Roger Karera
SARA BENABDALLAH
Led by ABLAKASSA, founded in 2024 by Ivorian artist and designer Jean-Servais Somian and Franco-Rwandan curator Roger Karera, the curatorial platform of DaDa Marrakech transgressed the art fair mould this year with its convivial offering.
Ablakassa
Cultural Exchange
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Connection
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Discourse
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Cultural Exchange ꩜ Connection ꩜ Discourse ꩜
The Diaspora Salon
A FOUR DAY FORUM SET
IN THE PICTURESQUE JNANE TAMSNA
Welcome to the palm oasis of Marrakech’s La Palmeraie where we partook in the Diaspora Salon, founded by Meryanne Loum-Martin, owner of Jnane Tamsna.
Conversations on re-curating history and restoring black visibility in Art by Denise Murrell, curator at large for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, intertwined with those of Alayo Akinkugbe, author of Reframing Blackness. Murrell’s seminal exhibition, Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today can be explored in greater detail here.
Eloïse King’s The Shadow Scholars film, screened under the stars, shed light on the Kenyan ghostwriters powering a global academic industry.
What We Loved.
Candlelit gala dinners in Jnane Tamsna’s expansive grounds, followed by evening jazz concerts with
China Moses.
Next Morocco Trip
March 2027.
1-54 Art Fair returns to Marrakech
from 18th - 21st March 2027.
Zami Collective will host a select group of creative minds, art collectors and artists for a week long stay in March 2027.
Want to join our collective at the 2027 Diaspora Salon taking place 21st-24th March too?
Mark your calendars and
register your interest with us early.
Preview art from across the continent, relish in warm spring days by the hotel pool and cozy up together by the fireplace in the evenings.