MACAAL Introduces Three New Installations Exploring Memory, Identity, and the Earth

From February 8, 2026, the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) in Marrakech unveils three new installations that enrich its permanent exhibition Seven Contours, One Collection. Through sculpture, immersive environments, and material-based interventions, these works offer powerful reflections on collective memory, human identity, and our relationship with the earth, reinforcing MACAAL’s position as a key institution for contemporary African art.

The new installations, Statues Also Breathe, Crazy Lines, and Ilā Turāb, occupy three distinct spaces within the museum and invite visitors into deeply sensory and conceptual experiences.

Statues Also Breathe: A Monument to Collective Memory

Presented in the Atrium, Statues Also Breathe is a major sculptural project led by artist Prune Nourry and developed through an extensive collective process. Composed of 108 terracotta sculptures made from local clay, the installation draws on ancestral Yoruba traditions of figurative sculpture while embracing a contemporary language shaped by collaboration.

More than a visual statement, the work functions as a space of remembrance and resilience. Created with the participation of Nigerian art students, female potters, and families affected by the Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction, the installation transforms clay into a medium of transmission and solidarity. The silent presence of the sculptures encourages contemplation, while an accompanying documentary extends the work beyond the gallery, giving voice to lived experiences and shared histories.

Crazy Lines: A Living Visual Landscape

Occupying the museum staircase, Crazy Lines by Yassine Balbzioui transforms a transitional architectural space into an immersive artistic environment. Conceived specifically for MACAAL, the installation blends murals, oil paintings, and sculptural framing into a dense visual composition that unfolds as visitors move through it.

Balbzioui’s recurring motifs, particularly masks and hybrid figures, populate the space as visual constants rather than symbols to decode. The work creates a sense of staged reality, where characters appear caught in their own roles and narratives. By allowing painting to spill beyond its frame and into the architecture, Crazy Lines turns movement into part of the experience, inviting visitors to pause, observe, and navigate the artist’s personal cosmology.

Ilā Turāb: Writing the Earth

Installed in the Artist Room, Ilā Turāb by Fatiha Zemmouri offers a quiet yet profound intervention rooted in material and gesture. The work consists of an inscription made directly on the floor using earth, shaped into Arabic Diwani calligraphy. Two phrases, “from the earth” and “to the earth,” intersect and gradually reveal themselves as visitors walk through the space.

As density shifts from opacity to clarity, reading becomes a physical act guided by movement and attention. Language dissolves into matter, and writing transforms into sediment. Free of religious reference, the installation evokes ideas of origin, return, and transmission, using earth as both material and meaning. Part of the soil comes from a previous MACAAL installation, creating a subtle continuity between past and present works.

A Museum in Dialogue with Its Time

With these three installations, MACAAL continues to expand the narrative of Seven Contours, One Collection, an exhibition that brings together modern and contemporary artists to explore themes such as decolonization, spirituality, ecology, and Afro-diasporic movements. Through diverse media and artistic voices, the museum fosters a dialogue between history and the present, intimacy and collectivity.

Together, these new works transform MACAAL into a space where art is not only observed but experienced physically and emotionally. They invite visitors to slow down, reflect, and engage with contemporary African creation as a living, evolving conversation.