Our cities are planned to detail. Urban plans foresee an end product, a final stage. The reality is different, causing friction. Everything changes over time, and so do the demands on the built environment. We need to address this and incorporate flexibility to allow for spontaneous developments.

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Aerosol art works are often the first signs of this friction in our city scapes.  Can aerosol art be instrumental? Does its bottom up origin legitimate it being a useful indicator? What meaning can Aerosol art give to the people, to the built environment? Does it allow for participatory trajectories and can it improve the social consistency in the city? What can architects, city planners and policy makers learn from it?

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In the context of the art exchange project Three Artists Three Cities, a conference was organised on the position of aerosol art and its position in making cities. AAmatters collaborated with the organisers to set up the programme and presented the research “Learning from Casablanca’ together with Abderrahim Kassou from Casamemoire.

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Speakers were among others Saquab Ashraf and Ike Ijeh (Blackstone Architects, UK), Abderrahim Kassou (Casamemoire, Morocco), Benjamin Benrakad, Martin Travers and Mohammed Ali, moderation by Afaina de Jong, editor of the publication For The People By The People. 

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The event took place in the Van Eesteren Museum in Amsterdam Nieuw West on 27th September 2012.