Demise of Les Abattoirs, a Thriving Artists’ Space in Casablanca
photo, video by Ryan Terhune, story co-written with Erika Riley
CASABLANCA—At the edge of the city sits Les Abattoirs, a crumbling cathedral of art-deco architecture that served as the city’s slaughterhouse for more than a century. After the last generation of butchers left in 2002 the nearly 14-acre complex became the unlikely home of a public art movement in a city where art, fighting uphill against a lack of space, funding, and free expression, struggles to be accessible. Les Abattoirs changed that, bringing free performances, workshops, and concerts to the industrial, working-class neighborhood of Hay Mohammadi.
But now, most of those artists are gone. The gates are guarded. The warehouses are silent.
“This place was magical,” said Yassine Elihtirassi, manager of Colokolo, a group of traveling acrobats that once called Les Abattoirs home.
Clues to this period of creativity linger in....