Leila Alaoui: A Passionate Vision
10 July 1982, Paris - 18 January 2016, Ouagadougou
Leila Alaoui, Souk de Boumia, Moyen Atlas (2011), from the series The Moroccans. Courtesy of Fondation Leila Alaoui and Galleria Continua.
With text by Mitra Abbaspour, curator and scholar.
The vibrant life and passionate vision of French-Moroccan photographer Leila Alaoui was tragically extinguished by wounds she sustained in a violent attack in Burkina Faso. Alaoui was there in assignment for Amnesty International to create a photographic report focused on a women's rights initiative. In her still burgeoning career, she garnered great respect and acclaim for her artwork as well as her reportage.
As a tribute to the contribution and legacy of her photography to our collective understanding of the world's localized and migrant communities, and to honor the strength of her voice as a young photographer from the Arab World, we have assembled the following portfolio of pictures from her series The Moroccans. Interspersed with her photographs are statements from a few of the artists who knew her as an artist and a person.
The construction of cultural identity and the circumstances governing migration were the themes that are woven throughout Alaoui's photographs.
The incredible portraits of The Moroccans emerge as a love letter from Alaoui to the country where she grew up. Inspired by the cross-country journey of Robert Frank's The Americans and harnessing the long tradition of itinerant African studio photographers, Alaoui set out on her own road trip through rural Morocco. On market days, where people from the surrounding villages would gather at the town center, she would set up her black backdrop and asking only that they face her, photograph those who desired it on their own terms. The clarity of her artistic eye and innate ability to connect with and garner trust from her subjects has made this series iconic within her oeuvre. In The Moroccans, Alaoui offers a picture of her compatriots free of external, touristic agendas.
The Moroccans are some of the most powerful portraits ever taken by Leila; but perhaps this series marks the most outstanding images ever produced about Morocco. The grace, beauty and humanity of these captivating faces penetrate deep in one's soul, without any form of exoticism or sentimentality. - Shirin Neshat