Randa Maroufi

In Randa Maroufi’s film The Park, a long tracking shot guides the viewer through an overgrown theme park in Casablanca, where they encounter a range of different young people in a series of highly fluid scenes. The youths are shown in everyday situations, but also embroiled in violent disputes. The film thematizes the violence between young people and their presence on different social media platforms. In a series of long shots in which the youths appear to be frozen to the spot, we see them coming at each other armed with dangerous weapons.

 

The film begins with a shot of a palm lined street, accompanied by the ambient sounds of the street and a radio broadcast about the supposedly criminal activities of young people on social networks. Subsequently, we hear a series of radio reports, as well as the voices of various young people who talk about wanting to be ›real‹, and discuss the right way of staging photos. The camerawork and the recorded conversations give the viewer the feeling that they will soon be confronted with an horrific violent event, an event which never actually occurs. Violence and brutality are hinted at, but remain hidden beneath the surface of the work. The images of the abandoned park, with its rusted and weathered equipment becomes a symbol for a broken youth, for whom the staging and actual carrying out of violence have become a way of venting their frustration. (Josephine Halbach)

 

Randa Maroufi wins the Videonale Award of the fluentum Collection. From the 43 video works nominated, the fivemember jury unanimously selected the artist’s video work “Le Park”.

 

The members of the jury were: Stephan Berg (General director Kunstmuseum Bonn), Markus Hannebauer (fluentum Collection), Stefanie Kreuzer (Chief-curator Museum Morsbroich), Shelly Nadashi (Artist, Brussels, winner of the VIDEONALE.15 award), Thomas Thiel (Director Bielefelder Kunstverein)

 

In its decision to award the Videonale Award of the fluentum Collection, the jury stated:

 

“Randa Maroufi’s 2015 film Le Park follows a group of young people gathered at an abandoned, derelict amusement park in the center of Casablanca. The rides lie in ruins, the buildings have collapsed, and the empty spaces are filled with rubbish and discarded objects. In a series of tranquil shots and slow-drifting image sequences, the camera captures a variety of group images set against a background whose dereliction gives it an almost painterly quality. The camera plays with its proximity to and distance from its protagonists and objects. The viewer is transported into an everyday world which seems to be shaped by boredom and violence. Anchored in the apparent inertia of the moment, the soundtrack informs the viewer of the criminal activities of young people and their staging in social networks. In individual scenes, these moments are re-enacted and captured in frozen images.

 

The jury was impressed by the visual density of the work, as well as its capacity to formally translate a social situation which unfolds both in public places and within the mediated space of social networks. The artist employs a carefully guided and decelerated gaze, which stands in stark contrast to the rapidity and endless reduplication of images online. In this way, Maroufi creates images of places and people that are rich in associations, recalling classical painting traditions. In this way, The Park can be understood as a metaphor for a social situation in which the public, private and media levels all merge with one another. The strength of the film lies in the intensity and simultaneous candor of its visual language, which allow it to capture and relay the situation it depicts at an existential level.”