Fez — Moroccan filmmaker, author, and visual artist Hicham Lasri is bringing his unconventional superhero universe to Casablanca with “جIFA-MAN 212,” an exhibition opening at L’Uzine on Friday, October 16, at 8 p.m.

Presented as “A Distopia by Hicham Lasri,” the exhibition introduces audiences to a fictional world shaped by absurdity, social criticism, and the artist’s distinctive sense of humor.

The event will take place at L’Uzine, a cultural space operated by the Touria and Abdelaziz Tazi Foundation, with free admission.

The exhibition follows Lasri’s exploration of جifa-Man, an unusual superhero he previously discussed in an August interview with Morocco World News Lifestyle magazine.

Meet the superhero who cannot take a shower

Forget the polished, invincible superheroes of Hollywood. Lasri’s جifa-Man has extraordinary strength and near-indestructibility, but he also has one deeply inconvenient weakness.

“He is almost the equivalent of an African Superman, except that he is allergic to water, and so he stinks,” Lasri told Lifestyle magazine.

Unable to tolerate water, the character smells terrible, attracts flies, and becomes an object of ridicule despite his extraordinary abilities.

But the absurdity does not stop there. جifa-Man also operates within a dysfunctional administrative system that cannot figure out what to do with someone capable of saving the world.

“He has all the powers in the world, he is indestructible, he is very strong and all that, except that he is affiliated with a sort of administration of broken arms,” Lasri explained.

The character belongs to the artist’s larger fictional universe of “Wecacablanca,” an exaggerated, dystopian reinterpretation of Casablanca.

In his earlier interview, Lasri described the character as part of an evolving creative project that could move between literature, painting, comics, and cinema.

He was also developing prose stories around جifa-Man rather than immediately turning the character into a conventional superhero comic.

The exhibition’s announcement now places that fictional universe at the center of a public art event, although the full selection of works has not yet been detailed.

Casablanca through an absurdist lens

Lasri has long treated Casablanca as more than a backdrop for his creative projects.

The city regularly appears in his films, books, and visual works, often transformed into a chaotic environment populated by unusual characters and recognizable social frustrations.

His fictional “Wecacablanca” exaggerates those contradictions, turning urban disorder, bureaucratic dysfunction, and everyday absurdity into material for storytelling.

جifa-Man fits naturally into that world.

Despite possessing extraordinary abilities, the character struggles to find a meaningful place in society, making him both a comic invention and a vehicle for social commentary.

Lasri’s visual work draws on collage, Pop Art, comics, painting, and experimental storytelling.

“I do not try to have a style,” he previously told Lifestyle magazine, describing his resistance to being confined to a single artistic identity.

The filmmaker has also questioned the conventions of Morocco’s contemporary art establishment, advocating greater creative freedom and alternative ways of presenting work.

A new chapter at L’Uzine

The exhibition arrives after a period of active visual experimentation for Lasri.

Earlier this year, he began sharing paintings, drawings, and mixed-media works on social media, treating Instagram as a constantly evolving virtual gallery.

Among those works was “جIFA-MAN — Protecteur de Wecacablanca,” a mixed-media creation combining painting, spray paint, and stamps.

The multidisciplinary artist described the work as occupying a space between a graphic novel