As Christmas is about to begin, the streets of Seville and its province are full of attractions and the cultural offerings multiply, adding to their usual attractions the visits to the traditional nativity scenes, audiovisual shows and a host of activities that appeal to our most human and supportive side.
But there is a different cultural offer to be enjoyed just by crossing the river. The Isla de la Cartuja and the institutions that live there offer a varied programme of activities for all audiences throughout the year - and also at Christmas - ranging from exhibitions to large concerts, theatre, forums, cinema and literary presentations.
At Christmas we celebrate peace and harmony. But to truly do so, and throughout the year, there is nothing more effective than mutual knowledge and respect. In this sense, the Fundación Tres Culturas has been working tirelessly for two decades in pursuit of the guiding principle that guides our actions, which is none other than to promote dialogue, peace and tolerance between peoples and cultures.
Day after day we shape an educational and cultural offer whose aim is to bring the richness of the peoples of the Mediterranean closer to our public. For this reason, during the Christmas period, Tres Culturas offers two different exhibitions that promote the other lights of Christmas: the light of knowledge and understanding.
The photo exhibition The Moroccansby the French-Moroccan photojournalist Leila Alaoui, who died in 2016, brings us closer to the reality of our Moroccan neighbours through some 30 portraits taken by the photographer and video artist in different rural environments in Morocco.
This photographic exhibition, which can be seen until 9 January at the Foundation, is a tribute to her short but intense career as an artist, but also as a committed person. Leila Alaoui died at the age of 33 after being seriously injured in the attack in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, while working on a project on women's rights for Amnesty International.
The thirty portraits that make up the exhibition come from rural environments scattered throughout Morocco, which, in Leila's own words, are based on "the filter of her intimate position as a Moroccan with the aim of revealing the subjectivity of the people portrayed".
However, Leila was not born in Morocco, let alone in a rural environment, but in Paris, into a wealthy French-Moroccan family. Her mother, the French photographer Christine Alaoui, taught her to love photography and to master its language. When she was six years old, the family moved to Marrakech, where she spent most of her childhood and adolescence. She then moved to New York to study photography and lived in different parts of Europe and America and in Lebanon before returning to Morocco in 2008. It was precisely this second contact with her origins that prompted her to work, between 2010 and 2014, on the series of portraits that resulted in The Moroccans.
In this series, Alaoui did not reflect typical scenes of Moroccan life, but painted portraits in the strictest and most classical sense of the term. Nothing in Leila's images seems stolen. In the words of the exhibition curator, photographer and writer Guillaume de Sardes, Alaoui's work reflects "the character of a committed and humanist oeuvre. Leila Alaoui's images are not stolen photographs, but portraits in the strongest and most classical sense of the genre. They have a strong pictorial dimension, and are far removed from any picturesque temptation. Leila's was an ethical project, an affirmation of dignity, contrary to any orientalism...".
In addition, from yesterday until 20 January 2020, Tres Culturas will be showing the exhibition Letters from the South of al-AndalusThe Andalusian Centre of Letters, an informative exhibition produced by the Andalusian Centre of Letters and curated by the researcher and writer Virginia Luque, aims to promote knowledge and recognition of Andalusian knowledge, authors and works.
Through 16 explanatory panels, the exhibition offers the opportunity to discover a bibliographic selection in the field of poetry, history, travel literature, philosophy, geography, food culture, medicine or agronomy, present in the Andalusian Public Library Network and not always known by the general public.
The curator, Virginia Luque, historian and master in architecture and heritage, explained at the opening that this exhibition is "an incitement to read about the treasures that can be found in the Andalusian Public Library Network. An aperitif to stimulate the search for the impressive horizon of Andalusian science and knowledge".
The aim is to awaken in the spectator the need to learn a little more about the enormous heritage of al-Andalus, which is an inescapable and indispensable part of our history. In the words of José Manuel Cervera, director of the Fundación Tres Culturas, "explaining al-Andalus is, perhaps today more than ever, very necessary. The rescue of untold episodes or, at least, not well told. Studying the history of Spain without paying attention to and highlighting this period is a mistake that must be rectified through initiatives such as this exhibition".
Letters from the South of al-Andalus It also highlights the fundamental role that Ibn Rushd (Averroës) and Ibn al-'Arabi played in revealing two models of thought that al-Andalus inherited from the classical world. The first master opted for Aristotelian rationalism, as opposed to the neo-Platonic-influenced Sufism that al-'Arabī practised and bequeathed to Islam. Centuries after the death of both, their thought continued to live on, generating debates in medieval European universities until it laid the foundations for a Renaissance that was beginning to take shape on the old continent.
In short, we hope that these two exhibitions will awaken in the visiting public an eagerness to get to know themselves and their neighbours a little better, so that the spirit that pervades us at this time of year will last when the Christmas lights go out.
Both exhibitions can be visited at our headquarters, the Hassan II Pavilion, on weekdays from 10 am to 3 pm.
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