Resisting from Morocco's Margins

After completing his studies in Spain’s La Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts), the artist Ahmed Amrani (b. 1942) returned to a newly independent Morocco, where he spent a demanding period creating murals and posters for the Rif Revolts of 1958. After Morocco’s independence in 1956, local citizens of the Rif, a region in the northeast of Morocco, resisted the central government’s policies, leading to a brutal clash between civilians and the royal army. Although invigorated and hopeful following independence, Amrani was negatively affected by the uprisings, which led to the newly autonomous Moroccan government to brutally punish those involved. Amrani used his artistic practice to express his anxiety over the oppressive national politics of the time. None of the murals or posters exist and no photo documentation remains of these ephemeral political gestures. Resisting from the Margins: Ahmed Amrani’s Protesta (1969) explores the only a