Flagship projects
MACAAL Bootcamp
A launchpad for African cultural practitioners
Initiated by Meriem Berrada and Claire Solery, MACAAL Bootcamp is a training and mentoring programme designed for young professionals working in African contemporary art institutions, with the aim of strengthening the continent's cultural ecosystems and encouraging the transfer of knowledge. The programme offers intensive sessions led by experts (Koyo Kouoh, Marie-Cécile Zinsou, and Seynabou Dia), combining workshops, critical discussions, and personalised mentorship. The Bootcamp welcomes art mediators, production managers, and project managers to develop their skills, representing a committed vision for a decentralised, collaborative, and pan-African culture.
MACAAL
Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden-MACAAL
In 2016, Meriem Berrada spearheaded the development of MACAAL, a private, non-profit museum dedicated to the promotion of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. The museum's tri-fold mission is to make art accessible to the widest possible audience, to support emerging African artistic expression, and to foster dialogue between cultures.
MACAAL's programming alternates between solo and group exhibitions, combining visual arts, design, contemporary craft, and photography. MACAAL also organises arts education and cultural outreach programmes.
La Chambre Claire
A platform for African photography
Launched in 2013, La Chambre Claire is a programme dedicated to emerging African photography, designed to identify, support, and promote young photographers from the African continent by offering them visibility, guidance, and professional opportunities.
Among previous winners and recipients of special jury mentions are Maya-Inès Touam, Adil Kourkouni, Amina Kadous, Abdo Shanan, Wiam Haddad, Christian Sana, and Yassine Alaoui Ismaili.
La Chambre Claire offers winners a first solo exhibition and artist residency, as well as critical and curatorial support.
Artist accompaniment / open studios
Practices in presence: artists at work
Meriem Berrada supports several artists in opening their studios to the public, transforming these working spaces into living sites of transmission, dialogue and exchange.
This fieldwork, led closely alongside the practices themselves, seeks to celebrate creative processes, to open new forms of encounter between artists and audiences, and to reveal the richness of what happens in the intimate spaces of artistic production.
- Amina Agueznay — Staging the studio as an archive of the practice, in dialogue with materials and craft gestures. aminaagueznay.com
- Amina Benbouchta — Shaping a hybrid space, between studio and residency, where painting, objects and feminist commitment intersect. sabrinaamrani.com
- Sara Ouhaddou — Opening a studio-laboratory where traditional savoir-faire are reinvested through collective, site-sensitive experimentation. awarewomenartists.com
These initiatives are part of a broader project: to make visible the singular paths of artists, to strengthen the ties between creation and territory, and to make the studio a place of hospitality, listening and reflection.