Yara Dowani is a farmer, activist and researcher from Jerusalem. She has been part of research groups studying perennial plants and edible wild plants in Palestine and since 2018, while being part of many initiatives and movements working on agroecology and food sovereignty, she has been farming and managing Om Sleiman farm. Currently Yara’s interest lies mostly in research and the educational part of farming and community forming.

Yasmine Benabdallah is a Moroccan filmmaker and visual artist. After studying cinema and mathematics at Columbia University, she took part in the Programme d’expérimentation en Arts Politiques at Sciences Po (SPEAP).  Through cinema, video, and writing, she explores stories around memory, performance, heritage, diasporas, archives, and rituals.

Rim Mejdi is a Moroccan filmmaker and curator. Co-initiator of the Ateliers Collectifs of Dar Bellarj and contributor of QANAT, she holds a master’s degree in Cinema Direction from the ESAV (Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels of Marrakech). Her films and projects have been shown and discussed in international festivals and platforms. Her work explores complex relationships between collective subconscious and memory and individual aspirations to spiritual liberty/emancipation.

QANAT is a collective platform exploring the politics and poetics of water to reflect and act (up)on the multiple contextual understandings and forms of reproduction of the commons in Morocco and beyond. Drawing from the legacy of the qanat (or khettara) system of water harvesting at the foundation of Marrakech, QANAT proposes to develop collective imaginaries to speculate on new spatial and epistemological configurations for the city. In parallel, it branches out to resonant reflections and actions in order to learn from other local struggles and knit them together into transnational patterns of solidarity and exchange.

Ahmed Bennys is a cinematographer and filmmaker based in Tunis. As a cinematographer, Bennys has worked on various early Tunisian films like “Hamida” (1966) and “The Picnic” (1975). Bennys has also worked as a director of photography on international productions like “Franz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks.” Recently, Bennys’ only film as a director, “The Mohammadia” (1974) has resurfaced after disappearing for decades. The film, a blend between animation, documentary, fiction and fedaoui storytelling was featured at the MoMA.

Imane Zoubai is a multi-disciplinary artist working between Casablanca and her hometown of Fes. After graduating from the National Institute of Fine Arts of Tetouan she co-founded the Mouhawalat collectives. Working at the intersection between natural and poetic materials and the various creative possibilities offered by musical emotion, she is particularly interested in the orality of her native region and the materiality of musical landscapes.

Soumeya Ait Ahmed is a cultural programmer, producer and researcher based in Marrakech. In addition to being a member of the artistic team at “LE 18,” a multi-disciplinary arts space in Marrakech, Soumeya co-founded AWAL, an art and research project as well as a residency dedicated to archiving and promoting the ancestral oral arts, especially those emanating from the Atlas and Southeast regions of Morocco. Soumeya has curated numerous exhibitions as well as other cultural events, from performances to film screenings.

Nadir Bouhmouch is a filmmaker, photographer and writer based in Marrakech. His practice revolves around agriculture, ecology and popular rural art forms with works which include short and medium-length films as well as essays and short stories. Nadir’s first feature film, “Amussu,” has shown at various festivals. In addition, he is also co-founder of AWAL (“the word”), an art and research project dedicated to ancestral oral arts in the Atlas mountains.

Laila Hida is a visual artist whose work explores un-negotiated physical or symbolic spaces and vernacular social practices through individual and collective projects. Her transdisciplinary interventions question the power of the image in the construction of personal fictions and collective imaginaries.

In 2013, she initiated LE 18, a multidisciplinary cultural center based in Marrakech that became a shared space and and extension of her practice of collective thinking and experimental formats generated from local contexts.

Francesca Masoero is a cultural organiser, researcher and curator. With a background in critical theory and political economy, she explores resistances in multiple forms, including testing collective-making processes within and beyond the art field, and researching the politics and poetics linked to watery commons and to forms of being in common otherwise. Since 2015, she works at LE 18 (Marrakech), where she initiated QANAT. Since 2019, she has collaborated with the Dar Bellarj Foundation on several projects.