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RAM-COM

009_09 / 30 March 2016

Seven years after falling in an island in Papua New Guinea, a Moroccan bird has adapted to his new Bower bird lifestyle. It is mating season and the competition is ruthless between Bower birds. Who will charm more females with their notorious Bower bird mating dance?

 

 

 

 

'I've been thinking a lot about that transitional moment of traveling back home and how the airplane (I always fly Royal Air Maroc [RAM] because it's direct from New York) is a first foot in Morocco, in the strangest way.

 

I watched RAM's adverts and they completely promote this image of being in Morocco the second you come in the plane, whether it is triggering this home feeling for Moroccans, or establishing folkloric and quality tourism vibes for foreigners. RAM being the national airline and having no competitor in Morocco, it is both a local pride and a disaster when it comes to the quality of the services on board or so I have noticed in the past decade. Often as I sit on the 7 or 8 hour flight between New York and home, I watch short animal documentaries on the TV screens of the airplane. I thought the Bower bird's mating dance from the famous BBC Life series shared some similarities with RAM's promotional strategies.'

 

 

About the author

Meriem Bennani

Meriem Bennani is a New York-based artist who grew up in Morocco, earned an MFA from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and a BFA from the Cooper Union in New York. Meriem is currently working on Fardaous Funjab, a reality TV show exploring the encounter of fashion and religion with a focus on the aesthetics of sexuality/sexiness in a contemporary Muslim context.