A film project by Heidi Vogels
Production: Heidi Vogels
Conceptual and production coaching: Manon Bovenkerk for near/by film

Gardens of Fez is a long-term research and film project that centers on the walled gardens in the medina of Fez in Morocco.

This research unfolded a cartography of spaces and practices linked through the stories and memories of the people that Heidi Vogels met in Fez, about the disappearing gardens of the city. Drawing on the notion of heterotopia as drafted by Michel Foucault, Gardens of Fez explores the interplay of different dimensions of a shared reality as it used to be. Therefore, the gardens exist as a space in between, allowing moving from the site to the subjectivities that inhabit(ed) it.

Over the years, the film developed in different stages and comprises a rich constellation of stories, film fragments, publications and exhibitions, culminating in 2023 in the single-screen documentary Gardens of Fez.

In 2021, the project was presented as the solo exhibition and program Assembly at Bureau Postjesweg in Amsterdam, and in 2022 as the film installation Things Unseen in the exhibition series Joint Narratives at TENT Rotterdam.

Images: top 3 stills from the film, bottom three exhibition views Assembly, courtesy G.J. van Rooij.