This project reflects the choices around personal identity for Moroccan youth. Through a selection of portraits, I document young people who take their destinies into their own hands.
These individuals have the courage to choose their own realities, often pushing the limits of society further. Whether through their creative activities, their appearance, or their sexuality, they convey the image of a young Morocco - alert, changing, claiming the right to be different and celebrating diversity.
These young people, whose minds embody the resistance of a palm tree - a tree adapted to the harshest Moroccan climatic conditions - defy the conservative and traditional norms of Moroccan society on a daily basis. They cultivate their private oasis despite the obstacles they encounter in a country that they feel is not progressing at the same pace as they are, and they are inspiring others along the way.
Born in a working-class neighbourhood and raised by a traditional family, Salma has always struggled to be herself. She is a Goth and loves the strange, the enigmatic and the unusual. She presents an ideal of beauty uncommon in Morocco and she particularly appreciates what is considered frightening, worrying or ugly under the standards of society.
Anas says he has problems with his family at home. They do not call him by his first name but by saying "the tattooed one". This qualification, which is pejoratively meant, says a lot about the stigmatization of tattooed people in the Moroccan collective imagination, because they are considered criminals, prisoners and dangerous people. He is a Peter-Pan, in the midst of adults, lost in issues beyond his control.
Salima's parents think that weightlifting will deform her body and that she will no longer be able to marry the man they wanted for her. She feels that she no longer corresponds to the stereotypical idea and criteria of feminine beauty as desired by men, yet it does not bother her more than that, because it is the body she has always dreamed of. If she questions the man's view on women, she also questions women's view on themselves.
Hajar and Ines are convinced that you have to talk, express yourself and have the courage to dare to say "I am here and yes, I am different, but I live with and among you". They declare that it is their duty as a queer community to assume and take over a space in which to exist. According to them, change will come when the queer community takes control of its own destiny and imposes itself as an active community.
Meryam Tilila has medication induced skin hyperpigmentation. She suffered from harassment in the streets. When you meet her, you quickly realize that she is a bright, determined and very confident young woman. The feedback she has had on her photos since last year on Instagram has made her popular and realize that her skin spots are a "perfect imperfection" and, in a way, her own signature. As a result, many Moroccan and foreign fashion designers and photographers work with her today because of her unique look.
Shady defines himself as "a fairy in the land of the Ogre, a maniac of non-gendered fashion, a mixture of pastel, gore and alternative punch bowl". In his very poetic way of being, he feels misunderstood in the eyes of a society that considers him a Satanist simply by having a metal ring in his nose.
Youssef is a fashion designer, I found when I met him that he had a very touching tenderness and sensitivity. He thinks he is lucky to be raised in a fairly open-minded family that has always supported him in his choices and directions and to be surrounded by friends who share the same vision and interests as him. He believes that societal change will come if people (the dominant majority of Moroccans) open up to other cultures and make humanity and not religion their true principle.
Tattoos mean everything to Alaeddine. His body is his book and his tattoos tell his story. All he has lived good or bad is inked on his skin. « We live only once » he says, he wants to remember the important moments of his life. He states that people in Morocco do not understand him: « They are usually closed-minded and moralistic, they frighten me by the way they look at me and by what they tell me ».
Amine and Kamal are two young artists from Marrakech. Together with other creative friends, they make very popular videos that reach hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. They target taboo, harsh and philosophical subjects such as suicide, appearance, sexuality, reality and fiction in a satirical and funny way. Their families encourage them to continue what they are doing.
Amine and Kamal are two young artists from Marrakech. Together with other creative friends, they make very popular videos that reach hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. They target taboo, harsh and philosophical subjects such as suicide, appearance, sexuality, reality and fiction in a satirical and funny way. Their families encourage them to continue what they are doing.
Nasser is fond of the Punk Rock scene and the horror films of the 1980s. He hates conformism and the dominant culture. He does not think that people will ever accept him as he is and that he will always be rejected. He thinks that society is still not ready to accept that people dare to be non-conformist, expressing their own identity. But he keeps a sense of gratitude to the few people who go beyond preconceived ideas and do not make easy judgments based on appearance.
Sofia says that imposing her way of being was not so difficult for her because she began to assert herself in a particular style of clothing very early on. However, in Morocco, she feels oppressed by the gaze of people, the street remains a territory where clothing identity remains an issue, difference a provocation.
Randa wears make-up and dress up every day before going out in Tetouan, a city known to be quite conservative. She says she has always been a " weird " child with a lot of imagination, attracted by the dark side, representing herself to the world differently from the others. "I have often been the victim of intimidation and sexual abuse, mainly because of my appearance. She was self-mutilation and suicidal. To fully accept herself, she went through a deep understanding of her unconventional personality. After a long work on herself, she admitted that society will never be a homogenized sphere. She sticks to what she intuitively believes in and has stopped worrying about any kind of external judgment.