Marrakech – Marrakech’s Fondation Montresso has launched its 2025-2026 cultural season, inviting visitors to explore themes of memory, absence, and transmission.
Staying true to its mission of supporting contemporary creation and diverse artistic practices, the foundation presents a program where introspection, engagement, and visual poetry intersect.
The season opened with “Pack What You Need” by Milan Sanka, posing a simple yet profound question: What do we carry in our baggage when departure comes before us?
An artist in residence at Jardin Rouge since 2022, Sanka creates a universe that intertwinines family heritage, exile, and identity.
His works, rooted in personal histories and fragments of memory, mirror the duality of his lineage: Spanish ancestors marked by the Retirada and a Creole heritage from Martinique.
Sanka’s compositions, built on large color planes, reveal the cultural layers of the individual. His spontaneous yet controlled lines preserve the vibrancy of hand-drawn art while exploring symbolic uses of color and form.
Oversized maps, dominoes, and masks become poetic artifacts, reactivating childhood memories and family narratives.
Presented in three stages, the exhibition combines visual arts, dialogue, and performance, in collaboration with artist Sanaa Abouayoub and the collective Dartdachabab.
Visitors were invited to a guided tour, followed by a cross-discussion on exile and memory, and a participatory performance encouraging guests to explore their inner landscapes through drawing and writing. The exhibition runs until November 29.
From October 18, the Galerie des Résidents will host “Minaye Khaali – Le vide émaillé”, bringing together Iranian artist Golnaz Payani and Spaniard Santiago Talavera. Both artists explore absence, traces, and resonance in unique ways.
For Payani, textiles become language and memory. By unraveling material, she reveals fragility and questions what lies beneath appearances.
Her works, inspired by Moroccan weaving techniques, give voice to women’s silent stories.
Clothing becomes a metaphor for the social body: objects that communicate belonging, transmission, and vulnerability.
Talavera, on the other hand, presents post-catastrophic mental landscapes where human presence has vanished.
His precise drawings and collages evoke worlds in reconstruction, merging classical heritage with ecological reflection to question our relationship with nature and the ruins of modernity.
The exhibition will open with a special event in partnership with the Gautier Capuçon Foundation, featuring a concerto by laureates Luka Ispir (violin) and Léo Ispir (cello), adding a musical dimension to this meditation on absence.
