Hassan Hajjaj brings Marrakesh tea shop to Miami Beach during Art Basel

Hassan Hajjaj is one of the leading photographers of his generation. He was born in Larache, Morocco in 1961 and moved to London when he was 12 years old. The contrast between his life in Morocco and what he saw in the UK had a profound influence on his work, as did a visit to Morocco in 1997. 1990s.

In his photos, Hajjaj shows stylishly dressed people in colorful spaces. The floors and backgrounds of these spaces often contrast with the colors of the subjects’ clothing or the couches and chairs on which they sit. In these gorgeous, large-scale photographs, Hajjaj adds custom frames composed of eye-catching canned goods, from tea to ketchup.

He often turns his lens to the people of Marrakech, where he lives part of the year. The most famous of these is his “Kesh Angels” series, which showcases the female henna artists common in Marrakech’s squares and markets, who can often be seen zipping around town on their motorcycles. These women are known for their brightly colored patterned robes and black face masks. Hajja often imagines them wearing heart-shaped glasses.

He turned these photos into moving images in his 2015 short documentary Karima – a day in the life of a henna girlThe play follows Karima, a henna artist he has known for many years, as she spends a day in Marrakech.

Over the years, Hajjaj’s practice has become more ambitious, transforming his images into immersive installations. Now, Hajjaj is bringing one of those installations to Miami Beach, called Dar Miami 1446, located at 530 Lincoln Road, as part of an ongoing collaboration between Capital One and Cultivist. The former retail store has been transformed into a large-scale installation decorated with vinyl prints of textile patterns covering the walls and floors. Throughout the installation are some of Hajjaj’s photographs, and there is also a room showing another of the artist’s films, U-Lot 2010which premiered in 2019 at the European House of Photography in Paris.

During the day, the public can visit Dar Miami 1446, whose name refers to the current year in the Arabic calendar. There, they can sample tea from Hajjaj tea brand Jajjah (his name is spelled backwards), as well as sweets made by Michelin-starred chef Rose Previte. They can also purchase merchandise from the store, with 100% of proceeds going to the Miami Foundation to support its work with marginalized populations in the greater Miami area.

Over three nights, from December 3 to December 5, Hajjaj hosted three dinners at a large table in the back of the restaurant to experience Previte’s Tawle menu, several of which are served family style. Offering hummus, muhamara, chicken kebab, saffron couscous, Georgian rib eye steak and braised lamb tagine. After dinner, the Hajj invited musicians to perform. The entire installation brings together art, food, music and community under the concept of Marhaba, a word that often refers to Arab hospitality and literally means “welcome.”

To learn more about the project, art news Dar Miami 1446 will offer its last tea service on December 6, and I spoke with Hajjaj ahead of its opening.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.

ARTnews: How did the Miami project come about?

Hassan Hajjaj: I got a call from Cultivist who asked me to be the second artist on their new project in Miami with Capital One. From there, it all started. The idea is to invite an artist to collaborate with a Michelin-starred chef to host a dinner and provide entertainment and music for their cardholders and guests from the arts world. For me, it’s a really easy thing to embrace because it’s art, music, and food, which are all things I love and part of my job and my ethos. I love it because it has a beginning, a middle and an end – and hopefully the end will be a big festival that people will enjoy.

The project is located in the former retail space of Lincoln Road Mall. Can you talk about the architecture of this space and your reaction to it?

Usually, the first thing I do is work on the space. I fell in love with this building because of its quirkiness. It led me to start creating a day and evening project, wanting to introduce my culture and my journey as a contemporary version of where I come from and all the influences I’ve had, from living in London to traveling and meeting all these great people along the way man road. I already have a project in Morocco, Jajjah. It’s a tea room with a boutique and an open kitchen, and we play music – there’s even a QR code on the packaging of our products that guides you to listen to the music while you drink your tea. So, it was a no-brainer to bring it to Miami because I had already built it in Marrakech.

The building is very beautiful because it has two windows with a door in the middle. On the right hand side I decided to bring the teahouse into a place where it can be open to the public during the day, and on the left hand side there is a shop where all our goods are sold. When I do projects like this, especially Capital One projects, I always try to see if there’s a way to provide something to the city or the community. 100% of proceeds from all items sold will be donated to the Miami Foundation. This is a plus for me.

Inside the building I created a large dining table with quirky seats, some tables next to it and a stage in front as a place where people can take photos in the background. Each night has a theme and the evening programming is fantastic. Starting at six o’clock, invited guests will come, enjoy cocktails and then sit down to enjoy the food and we will have a live band and DJ for the after-party. Every night at dinner, Simo Lagnawi plays a specific type of music from Morocco called Gnawa music. The first night we had Yussef Dayes, who is a friend of mine and has collaborated with me on previous productions, and he was playing live. The next night, after dinner, Shaboozey performed a DJ set with DJ Pee .Wee (Anderson .Paak). The third night, we had Kaytranada, who would basically DJ until 2 or 3 in the morning.

Beyond that, because I wanted to showcase my region through our food, Joey from Cultivist recommended Chef Rose Previte. In addition to dinner, Ross also makes some sweets to go with each specific tea type. I love what she does – she makes food that reminds you of your grandma cooking over an open fire. I immediately felt comfortable with it because the idea was to have people come and hang out. Food is important in expressing solidarity – it’s how we eat and how we welcome others. In some rooms I will display some of my art, mostly videos and photos. I want people to come there and find different corners and different spaces so they don’t get bored.

when you have dinner [in the art world] People come, have cocktails, sit around the table, and then leave, but I wanted it so that people could go to another table and talk to the people there. It’s like a home—like my home in Miami.

Can you talk about why you think Is this passion for making people feel welcome important to this project?

It’s easy if the room just has a desk and some art. What people may not understand is that we have a situation like this in this part of the world [where I come from]where we are welcomed, where food is important, how we sit around a table and eat from one plate. Often, in situations like this in the art world, there is sometimes a tendency to be too formal and, in my opinion, become a little too cold—it bogs down the conversation. Instead, I want to bring people into a different environment and experience culture, food and music. In a way, it gave me a taste of what it was like growing up in Miami.

What was the impetus for launching your tea brand Jajjah?

I have a partner, Amine El Baroudi, who is a very large tea manufacturer in Morocco and globally. He is also an art collector. I met him through some opportunities many years ago. His company also produced packaging for tea, and I asked him if I could use his factory to design my own cans for my photo frames. Typically, I buy all my cans from different stores. I wanted to push it and see if I could design my own jar to make it more personal. He invited me to the factory and took me on a tour of the factory. Then I started designing things. Every time I went there, I would meet him, and then one day, as we were sitting there, he told me, “Hassan, you should make a tea brand.” I thought he was joking and didn’t pay attention. The next time I went he said the same thing. After talking about it for about a year, I thought why not take up the challenge? That’s where it all started. As an artist, I think: What can I bring to the table? It was easy for me to add a QR code to listen to tea and music, and I also got other artists involved in the packaging. It’s been a fun learning journey.

How did you approach the design of this project when choosing different textiles and colors? Can you talk about your approach to color and pattern?

I think growing up in Morocco and then moving to London makes a big difference, weather-wise, you wear clothes in Morocco that you wouldn’t wear in Europe – bright colours. To elaborate, I’ve always considered British film noir and Moroccan color film because of their stark contrast. I think the contrast was so great that when I started experimenting with color in the UK it almost looked wrong because of the lighting. It also has something to do with sunlight. But I just went with my rhythm and my feel for color and kind of learned to clash colors. I guess I was escaping that environment too, creating a Pandora’s box of escape for a minute or a few hours.

This does happen naturally. I’ve been doing a salon since ’96, which is an environment that uses recycled items to create something that is both familiar and fresh, inviting people to be able to sit down and use it. That’s the background I come from. I’ve worked in small places and big places. It’s always been a challenge: how to make a big place not so cold, and how to make a small place warm and welcoming. I think I had all these experiences growing up, learning how to clash colors and how to use space to make people feel comfortable. For example, they wouldn’t normally sit on a crate, but when you put them in this environment, they don’t see it as a crate, they see it as a seat. It’s playing with that, and I think that really comes from my background growing up in Morocco and recycling things. When I say Morocco, I’m also talking about [the rest of the Global South]The African continent, the Caribbean, South America, nothing is thrown away there. For me, the most important thing with this project is for people to enjoy it and hopefully experience something new.