It all begin with the Blanche de Mortain Abbey in the Mont St Michel bay in 1997. It was at the place that I developed my enthusiasm of art, based on a cultural dialogue.
2001 was a decisive year to creat a combination between the hearts and the cultures at the occasion of the meet between the plastic artist Rachid Koraïchi and the Japanese calligrapher Akeji Sumiyoshi. I invited them to confront their artworks in an exhibition named Unité au Coeur in June 2001. A great friendship was built between these two men who are from totally different cultural backgrounds.
During the winter of 2004-2005, a big projet was born in the abbey. The Belgian painter Marcel Hasquin has joint their team to have some exchange and create artworks together… by six hands.
There came the successful exhibition - Ensemble (means “together” in French) in Unesco (Paris). Attached by the mountains in Kyoto, Japan, Akeji desired to go to see Rachid Koraïchi’s country. In the summer of 2014, Akeji made this idea come true. These two artists lived and communicated in Rachid Koraïchi’s residence in Morocco, where he owned for a few years, by the evidence of photographer Hervé Desvaux, who has been recording those precious moments by photographing them.
In October of the same year, the Casablanca International Biennale has been organized and a part of their artworks, created a few months ago, have been exhibited, including Hervé Desvaux’s photography works.
Thanks to the generosity and the enthusiasm of the directors of A2Z Art Gallery, Anthony Phuong and Ziwei Phuong, their artworks will be presented together for the first time in Europe. Through a book about Rachid Koraïchi, you will be able to experience the same moment that we have lived.
Convinced that under other horizon the adventure is going to continue, art builds the peace with accepting differences and respecting the others' culture.
Didier BENESTEAU
Exhibition Commissioner
St Pair/Mer - August 2016