Asilah Arts Festival

The Moussem Culturel International d'Asilah was started in 1978 by two men from the town, Mohamed Benaissa and Mohamed Melehi, at a point when Asilah was declining, and the idea was straightforward: invite artists from Morocco and abroad each summer to paint murals directly onto the medina's whitewashed walls, hold a programme of talks, poetry, music and exhibitions around it, and use the whole thing to fund and justify restoring the town. It worked - Asilah's medina was repaired, the festival has run for four decades, and the walls are repainted every year, so the murals you see are that year's and the previous ones have been whitewashed over. That impermanence is the interesting part: the town is a canvas that resets annually. Outside the festival the medina is white and blue and quiet, with Portuguese walls and a good beach.

The main sights

• Annual murals - painted straight onto medina walls and whitewashed over the next year.
• A restoration engine - a festival started in 1978 to justify and fund repairing the town.
• Talks and music - a programme of poetry, exhibitions and performance around the painting.
• A resetting canvas - what is on the walls is this year's work only.

When to go

July or August, during the moussem; dates vary. Two to three days.

Good to know

Murals are painted over annually - you will not see previous years' work. Accommodation in Asilah books out and prices rise during the festival. Summer crowds are heavy. Programme details are published late.

Nearby

Tangier is north; Larache and Lixus are south.