On Sunday morning, July 6, 2025, in a lecture hall at the Avanti Hotel, the “Art Wave” Association organized an important intellectual seminar titled “Global Artistic Visions and Transformations.” This event took place alongside the academic gathering on visual arts in Casablanca and brought together a distinguished group of critics, thinkers, and artists from Morocco and other Arab countries.
This seminar embodied the spirit of the gathering, which aimed to enrich academic discussions about global artistic transformations and the significant changes occurring within the realm of visual arts, whether on aesthetic, conceptual, or technical levels.
The seminar, smoothly moderated by artist and writer Mustafa Ghazlani, the artistic director of the gathering, featured the participation of notable contributors: Dr. Abdallah Al-Sheikh, an academic critic and researcher, presented an in-depth critical reading of the transformations taking place in the visual arts in relation to contemporary social and cultural contexts.
Bniouns Amirouch, an artist and critic, examined the integration of creative work and artistic criticism in his presentation, emphasizing the importance of a renewed vision of art in the age of globalization and post-modernism. Hassan Nraiss, a writer and critic, highlighted the challenges facing contemporary critical discourse and the necessity of engaging analytically and methodically with new artistic phenomena.
The seminar provided an opportunity for discussion and exchange of ideas among participants, tackling various issues related to contemporary artistic transformations, from the emergence of new trends and styles to the evolution of artistic concepts and their intersections with the digital revolution, as well as the implications of these transformations on the Moroccan and Arab artistic landscape.
Participants agreed on the need for ongoing academic and critical research in the field of the arts, urging openness to global experiences and keeping pace with the rapid transformations within the artistic domain.
It is noteworthy that this seminar was part of the “Art Wave” academic gathering for visual arts, held in Casablanca with broad participation from artists and critics from Morocco and friendly nations, supported by various institutions and media partners, along with private sector collaborators, emphasizing the importance of promoting artistic culture and critical thinking in academic and community circles.
This intellectual event comes in the context of artistic and cognitive transformations that compel actors in the Moroccan and Arab visual arts scene to consciously interact with global dynamics, particularly those related to changing concepts of aesthetics and the expansion of artistic expression boundaries amid an unprecedented integration of visual arts and technology, along with the emergence of hybrid creative forms that transcend classical borders.
Discussions during the seminar highlighted how art is no longer merely a separate aesthetic production from the realities of political and social transformations; it has become a mirror of a turbulent era and a link between individual identity and collective imagination, where issues like environmental concerns, identity, freedom, memory, migration, and social justice are central to contemporary artistic expression.
In this regard, contributors emphasized that the Moroccan and Arab artistic scene is currently undergoing a dual struggle: on one hand, artists are striving to renew forms and methods while engaging with international experiences; on the other hand, there is a pressing need to establish the distinct characteristics of local artistic identity and to nourish it from the diverse streams of heritage and cultural legacy.
Issues related to artistic education were also raised during the seminar, alongside the roles of academic institutions in refining emerging talents and preparing a new generation of artists capable of critical interaction with changes, equipping them with modern artistic expression tools, including digital media, interactive arts, and public space art.
At the conclusion of the seminar, participants expressed the importance of intensifying such intellectual encounters, which provide bridges for communication between artists, critics, researchers, and the community. They considered that the real challenge today is not only to develop artistic production but to reshape the question of art in light of its global transformations.
The dynamics and transformations currently being witnessed in the artistic scene, both in Morocco and globally, call for a rethinking of concepts of beauty, identity, and innovation beyond traditional frameworks, amid a cultural reality where globalization intertwines with local specifics, tradition with modernity, and the material with the virtual.
There is an urgent need to formulate artistic visions that respond to this complex interweaving, opening up new avenues for human creativity, making art not only a mirror of the era but an active force in shaping major cultural and social transformations. This necessitates critical awareness, openness to experimentation, and boldness in questioning aesthetic assumptions, with a view towards contemporary creativity that transcends borders and reshapes the features of art as a space for freedom, dialogue, and cultural engagement.
