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An Event Without Its Poem
Is An Event That Never Happened

Towards a speculative Arab art residency proto-history



Tar Izli, Ur Tamu (An event without its poem is an event that never happened) is an ancient Amazigh proverb from the Ait Atta tribe in the Moroccan Atlas region. The proverb has inspired forms and manifestations of resistance and struggle such as the Movement on Road ’96.
Rooted in a long tradition of fear resistance to dominant centralizing powers, Movement on Road ‘96 is a long-term grass-roots struggle that is carried out by the Amazigh village communities of Imider (Morocco) since the eighties. Movement on Road ‘96 embodies the resistance process and a struggle for the right to water, land, and life triggered by the abusive exploitation of the region perpetrated by one of the biggest silver mines in Africa.
The movement has drawn from indigenous self-governance strategies and the tradition of itinerant poets-activists to articulate and reactivate their struggle. An event without its poem is an event that never happened is dedicated to their cause.For more information see: 'Amussu: experiment for a cinema from below' by Nadir Bouhmuch, Open Democracy (2019), and 'Becoming qanat' by Francesca Masoero, talk for the Eastern Europe - North Africa and Middle Eastern Forum at Biennale Warszawa 2019.