Stories of the Desert
In a Changing Climate
Understanding the urgency with which climate action is needed, INGO and Music School Joudour Sahara, Sound Artist and Composer Susie Ibarra, and Openlab The Witness are providing platforms for underrepresented young women in M’hamid El Ghizlane to define their own climate narratives, hearing and seeing how they experience climate issues. We are working with 15 young girls aged 9 - 15 to record and video natural and domestic environments affected by climate change, along with 3 female community leaders to coordinate the project locally.
On their first field week together for Joudour Sahara and Susie Ibarra, the sounds that students felt were most pressing to record were water sources and as well as lack of and the dry rivers, extreme heat and wind in the constant effort to hold off desertification. These sounds were recorded on site, farm, desert, in its use in homes, the school and at various hours of the day .We conducted interviews about the climate stories with conservationist and cultural ambassador for the region and Co-Founder of Joudour Sahara , Halim Sbai, and their lead farmer Habib of Joudour Sahara Cultural and Environmental Center as well as family members of several generations in the community.
These sounds and video will create an spatial multi-channel installation that are currently in development to be exhibited in several places in Morocco, US, and Europe beginning end of summer 2023.
M'Hamid El Ghizlane is the 6th and last Oasis in the Draa Valley of South Sahara. Joudour Sahara is working to establish better water management for the community and a proposal for a water reservoir to capture and utilize efficiently rain water to revitalize the desert communities and farming.
