This is an open call for artist mothers and primary caregivers to join a residency in the city of Marrakech to foster creativity for both you and your child. With a focus on nurture, self-direction, low output and conversation, this ten-day residency aims to free you and your child so you have SPACE for your personal practice and interior life. 

 

There is no doubt about it - becoming a mother takes a lot of emotional, creative, spiritual, and physical energy. However, the age-old idea that motherhood and creative work are not compatible needs to be resigned to the history books and a new understanding of the creative flow and caregiving created. MAMA is a residency space where mothers can come together to share ideas, childcare and critical feedback. 

 

The residency will provide professional childcare for children between 6 months and 5 years and a cook freeing up precious TIME for research, experimentation and expression. The intention of the residency is to strike the right balance between time as a group, supporting one another through conversation and shared play and having invaluable space for personal work. We believe that the creative growth of the mother and the child can happen in tandem and MAMA is a space to enjoy the abundance that emerges when mothers come together in a collective spirit. 

 

Interested? Email: manyartistmothersalive@gmail.com and we will send you a simple form to fill out or find it here. There will be a light selection process so we have a good mix of ages, backgrounds, practices, and experiences. 

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Residency Framework 

 

The residency offers a frame that leaves time and space for anything necessary to arise f.ex. spontaneous needs and lives of our children and selves. 

 

Every day there will be two childcare professionals at the residency space to look after the children for 5 hours a day and a cook to make meals so we have optimum time for creativity. 

 

• Optional opportunity to share your practice with the group 

• Each day participants can offer workshops, creative processes or opportunities for collaboration 

• There is a dance studio downstairs and a roof terrace where you can work on your own practice 

• Opportunity to go out in the city of Marrakech for inspiration 

• Morning meditation 

• Shared meals 

• Full-body painting session with our children 

• Opportunities to help in the kitchen and learn about Moroccan food

• Impro/Dance sessions with our children

• Opportunity to open the space to the public to present ‘something’ - which will be directed and formed by the group. The audience will be other local mums and creative folk. 

 

Price

 

500 euros for 10 days includes: 

• single, private room for you and your child (children)

• Daily childcare (10h-12h and 15h-18h)

• A cook for the full 10 days 

• The residency programme and community 

• A Dance Studio and shared working spaces in the residency building 

• Art Supplies in collective activities with children

 

Please note: Food is not included. We will collect 15 € per day per Adult to go buy ingredients on the market. There will be vegetarian and non-vegetarian food options. 

 

We would love to offer some spaces to mothers who don’t have access to this kind of opportunity. If you are in the position - would you be able to contribute to a scholarship position? 

 

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Bio’s of Organisers 

 

Florence Devereux 

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Hello, I am Flo, a London based musician/performer, astrologer, curator and first-time mum! Marrakech was an important place for me growing up. As a child my mother worked in the city and I spent my 20s running the art residency, Mint Works, in the southern part of the medina. My different practices weave collaboration, cosmology and performance. Having just become a mother, shifting the narrative and living reality that once you become a mum your creative life is over, has been very important for me! Hana’s invitation to run MAMA together was very meaningful as I want to create space for other mothers to have space for play with their children AND for their interior lives and creative work! Getting together with other creatives to share how to bring up children in expanded ways as well as creating time for creative mothers to be away from their children to focus on their own work is seldom offered and I am grateful that my child Ida and I will get to experience the residency. 

 

Hana Tefrati 

 

Hi I’m Hana Tefrati, a Moroccan-German choreographer, dancer/performer, visual artist and curator based in Marrakesh since 2013. I am a mother for 4 years and fully embracing this experience. I love exploring creative motherhood and seeing how it nurtures my child’s spirit. Dancing, playing, improvising, experimenting, painting, singing … In 2014 I founded the Queens Collective where I curate international residency programs, events, and retreats. Behind all these encounters the idea of creating temporary collectives, support and grow structures, and opportunities for bonding and connecting even beyond the event time is essential.

In my work as a physical practitioner, I use improvisation methods to reach an expression that comes from a very deep place of intuition and letting go. Also, meditation and BMC (body-mind centering) are practices that help me stay in my center also during mothering.

Often maternity experiences are marked by a lack of support for creating personal care time and creative work time. I wish to create a temporary MAMA village where raising children becomes a shared community task and everyone can find TIME for CREATIVE SELF-CARE.

 

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Hana and Flo met in 2014 during the Marrakech Biennale. They have worked together on projects such as the performance programme for 1:54 African Art Fair at Somerset House, art exhibitions during COP26 in Marrakech and in London at Yinka Shonibare’s space Guest Projects. Flo has started at Queens as a part of a previous residency. Now, as mothers, they come together to create, play and support one another. 

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