El artista saharaui Mohamed Sulaiman diseña el cartel de ARTifariti 2013

Texto del presentación firmado por el autor del cartel: 

ART Intifada does not only depict what we are doing as artists, in fact it brings the pains and the sufferings of the Saharawi people in front of the world through the artistic expression of color, shape and thought. Art is revolutionizing the revolution, there is no limit of what can art do.

In November 2010, Saharawi civilians went out of the city of Laioun, now occupied by Morocco. They organized a peaceful protest in Gdaim Izik –the place where the Saharawi families set up tents numbering thousands. The Gdaim Izik camp may not have lived long, for the Moroccan army crashed it down very soon, but it marked two significant factors in the conflict.

First, the presence of an unquestionable will within the Saharawi people to reach their goal of independence. It’s difficult to restrain these people when they have freely wandered the vast desert for centuries. They are free people by nature. Second, the means with which they fight for this goal. These means are peaceful in the sense that they are very Saharawi too. The tent; a shelter and a refuge for the Saharawi nomadic people of yesterday, now has a role to play in today’s Saharawi life too; the same object that protected them from the hardships of nature, today stands firm beside them. It became a symbol of protest as visible in the protest arena as the Saharawi people themselves. The tent has changed from a passive object only to be dwelled or to be sought as a cover from the sun and the wind to a very active object of its own. Now it participates and takes action just as actively as the people who live in it.

Therefore, ART Intifada is truly igniting the scene. The tent, the camel, the Melhfa and the Darraa along with their different colors, shapes and representations are all part of the Intifada. The presence of these traditions, as forms of art, is the ART Intifada.

Mohamed Sulaiman

Smara, 2013