Interview with Curators Michele Cairella Fillmore and Michelle Napoli-Cooley

Cairella-Fillmore

May you please talk about the beginnings of the project? Why Morocco?

Who was involved in the works for collecting data and transmitting the experience?

Cairella-Fillmore

I was approached by Lee-Anne Milburn who is part of my college (the College of Environ. Design). She went on the trip and approached me, as Gallery Director of Kellogg and Huntley Galleries, about doing a show highlighting in one of the galleries. The Huntley Gallery happened to have an exhibition slot that opened up, so we moved forward.

Napoli-Cooley

As stated in the exhibition’s opening text panel, “Fourteen members of the Cal Poly Pomona community traveled through Morocco in the summer of 2017 on a Fulbright-Hays grant from the U.S. government directed by Dr. Faiza Shereen and Dr. Mahmood Ibrahim.”  

Some of the conditions of the grant were to complete outreach activities, in addition to integrating the Morocco experience into our curriculum.  Part of the grant application process was to set goals for how we would start a discourse regarding the knowledge gained from the overseas trip. Before departure, one of my goals was to arrange a photography exhibit of images from the on-site experience. I felt that this forum could be a successful way to communicate both the visual and verbal messages to the public, so they could gain a more complete knowledge with a way of life that might be currently unfamiliar to them.  

Once in Morocco, Marta Albala Pelegrin proposed that we organize a group exhibition and there was enough interest that we took some deliberate steps to work towards this plan while we were there.  In Ifrane, Hilary Haakenson, Marta, and I met with three ladies from the women’s cooperative Diyae. Marta interviewed Fatima in French, their shared language, and they allowed us to photograph them.  Their organization sells a variety of products but the majority of the questions revolved around our interest regarding the challenges and rewards of being in charge of a female cooperative. They have a website if you want more information: http://www.diyaecouscous.com

The rest of the collection came from the photographs our group took and items we all brought back from the five-week experience.  Because we are educators in a variety of fields, and have individual interests, it was fun to see what the different members of the group gravitated towards.  I don’t know if we would have had the opportunity to share so many of our images with each other if it weren’t for our shared goal of the group exhibition.

• How did you envision the exhibition? What was the focus or idea you wanted to highlight and inform the audience?

Cairella-Fillmore

We had weekly meetings to determine the shared vision of what became the Morocco: Crossroads and Meeting Ground exhibition.  Lee-Anne Milburn initially helped organized the group with activities that eventually established the five categories we shared with the public: Historical Richness, Social Interaction in Context, Sounds and Music, Markets, and Culinary Traditions and Visual Layering.  

• Through the gallery experience, I’ve got the impression that you’ve seemed to capsulate one of the most notable experience in the Arabic world—that of the market. The photography at the exhibit gives us a glimpse of the experience, but the goods: spices, clothes, textiles, jewelry bring more of that spatial authenticity here. Can you tell us of your experience in the markets, and how that influenced the selection of the images and the layout of the goods in the exhibit?

Napoli-Cooley

The souks in Morocco are a very sensory experience, and that would have been difficult to convey with the still images alone.  One of the features that I was particularly drawn to was the way that natural light filtered into the space through fabric that hung above to create shade.  Lee-Anne and her husband Neil Rhodes designed the way the fabric hung in the exhibition to try and emulate this detail.

• The spices really add an olfactory dimension to the exhibit, but also the strength of the smell creates this almost faux-taste, and that along with the visionary, auditory, tactile stimulation from the art, music, and interactive technology respectively, creates this multi-dimensional exhibition.  What or which were the steps taken in the creative process of constructing it as so?

Cairella-Fillmore

At the on-set, during our brainstorming session when orienting ourselves to the concept of a show, and first planning the exhibit, it was clear that the senses were all affected in various ways by the Morocco trip experience. It was the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures and how each made them feel that propelled the participants to make this part of the exhibition experience as well. And I, as a progressive curator at a polytechnic and tech-based institution, where first-hand, experience-based education is our mission, I encouraged the idea of including elements that represent all the senses for a full-sensory viewing experience. Including music, calls to prayer, instruments, spices, cooking platters and tea glasses, clothing and textiles, along with amazing participant-captured photographs, all seemed logical ways to exemplify the experience through all the senses, and inform the visiting guest.

Napoli-Cooley

Recreating the sensory experience of Morocco was the shared responsibility of the group.  After receiving suggestions and contributions from the group as a whole, Kent Dickson created the playlist, while Lorelei Ortega compiled the sound and video clips.    

• Islamic art known for is intricate pattern design as a form of religious art, tends to be given the most attention in Western art study. However, while the exhibit does highlight some of this art in showing the beauty of the architecture and pattern design, it doesn’t seem to be the only thing that was given attention. Was there a shift of the focus to include that of more than just pattern design?

Cairella-Fillmore

I can only say, based on my conversations with all the participants, and by sitting in on planning meetings, I know they did not want the show to fall into “stereotyping” the Moroccan people or culture, or “tokenizing” these either. It was a concerted effort by the group to ensure that there was a balance between showing the distinguishing characteristics of the place and its people, while showing the “normalcy” and “connectiveness” of this land and its people as well.

• Throughout the art there seems to be many dialogues spoken through the images. A noticeable one is that of tradition and the new. Perhaps since in this nation, America, it is relatively young and it doesn’t tie itself with any antiquity history, but Morocco does, since many ethnicities and cultures have inhabited the area since antiquity. The image of the cable satellite dishes, the presentation of the Moroccan national soccer team jersey, and the what seems to be a pop-concert, challenge the American preconceived notion that non-Western nations are “stuck in the past” since they keep tradition from their past. However, that is far from the truth. They are people of our time and aren’t excluded from this age of globalization. Upon the experience at Morocco, can it then be said that them keeping their traditional aspects aren’t a relic of the past but part of their own cultural dynamic to syncretize that of the new with their old. Did you feel as though you captured that dialogue through the images and the art?

Cairella-Fillmore

I think there was a concerted effort to show this diversity, these similarities and distinctions between cultures, in a respectful and distinguished way. I believe this was the intention.

Napoli-Cooley

What we were able to capture were just little vignettes of our trip.  Even in five weeks, there is no way we can speak about Morocco as experts; we can only show pieces of our shared experience and some of the aspects that we were drawn to for a variety of individual reasons.  Part of what I hope that the exhibition achieved was to inspire others to travel to the region and experience Morocco for themselves.

• The other dialogue that is also present is that of women in society. In Western society that what is presented to us of the Islamic world, paints a picture that women are being oppressed, especially through the “regulation” of their attire and gender roles. However, in the exhibition text, you guys acknowledge that equal pay and maternal leave are not an issue in Morocco, whereas in America those issues haven’t been successful to the whole extent. May you speak more on that contrast of both cultures, and how you’ve reflected that experience in Morocco as Western-living women in the exhibit?

Cairella-Fillmore

I think there was a concerted effort to show this particular aspect, especially in the area regarding the coop of women who developed and sold a brand of cous cous and argon oil.

Napoli-Cooley

I think that sometimes there is a tendency to get hung up on the veil but, as I hope we showed in the exhibit, the attire that Moroccan women choose to wear does not seem to restrict them from their chosen activities.  One of my photographs from the exhibit, Waterfall Hike in Zawyat Had Ifrane, showed a mother of three on a hike. The photograph Cooperative Feminine Diyae introduces the women entrepreneurs of the all-female cooperative that specializes in the production of Moroccan couscous and the distillation of aromatic plants.  The exhibition also highlighted Fatima Sadiqi, a Senior Professor of Linguistics and Gender Studies at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez. She has published extensively in her field, writing books on gender studies, globalization, and the Berber language. In 2015-16, Sadiqi was a Woodrow Wilson Center Global Fellow. In 2013-14, she was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at Cal Poly Pomona as part of the 75th Anniversary Celebration.

• The exhibit is coming to an end, but is there any information of upcoming projects that you would like to let students and gallery-goers know? We do. See details in Press Release below for Something in Between Opening Nov 6 at the Kellogg University Art Gallery (Bldg. 35A):

Somewhere in Between

co-curated by Michele Cairella Fillmore and Bia Gayotto

Opens on Election Day 2018: Tues., Nov. 6, 2018 – Thurs., Mar. 17, 2019

Artist’s Reception: Sat. Nov. 10, 3-6pm