Children of Al-Andalus
Children of Al-Andalus. Portraits of Andalusian-Moroccan Muslims and Jews is an exhibition featuring photos, film and stories of Moroccan descendants of Jews and Muslims from Al-Andalus.
Andalusian culture
The prosperous Islamic Empire of Al-Andalus existed in the Middle Ages in what is now Spain and Portugal. Muslims, Jews and Christians lived there alongside and with each other for eight hundred years. When new Christian rulers expelled the Jews and Muslims from the empire, they fled to Morocco, among other places. Now, five hundred years later, their Moroccan descendants are still proud of their Andalusian background.
Portraits
In recent years, Dutch friends Hicham Ghalbane (photography) and Rick Leeuwestein (stories) went in search of these descendants in Morocco. The two photographed, filmed and interviewed more than forty Andalusian Moroccans who talk about the strong bond they still feel with the legendary empire. A selection of these portraits will be on view in the Kunstkabinet of the Jewish Museum. The exhibition has an outside part, on the Waterlooplein (Amstel side). Three seventeenth-century books that have an Amsterdam link with Al-Andalus are on display in the treasure chambers of the Portuguese Synagogue.
The book Children of Al-Andalus by Rick Leeuwestein and Hicham Ghalbane is for sale in our Museum Shops.
Children of Al-Andalus. Portraits of Andalusian-Moroccan Muslims and Jews is on view from January 21 to April 18, 2022.
Location
This exhibition is on view in the Art Gallery in the Jewish Museum, Nieuwe Amstelstraat 1 in Amsterdam.
