Empreintes by Farida Hamak

This series explores, through a documentary yet poetic lens, the visible and invisible traces of History, silent transmissions, and embodied legacies rooted in both people and places.

For several years, I have traveled through the countries of the Maghreb and the Middle East in search of spaces undergoing transformation for cultural, economic, and environmental reasons. Paying particular attention to the place of women and their intimate spaces within these so-called traditional, patriarchal societies, the human figure remains central to my practice—even if it appears only through clues or fleeting presences.

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As a continuation of this artistic journey, I set out to explore the Tunisian territory, seeking both tangible and elusive traces of the country’s complexity.

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Evolving over time since 2022, the Empreintes project has taken shape through travels from north to south—from the capital Tunis to the fringes of the Sahara—tracing the coastline all the way to the island of Djerba, where the sea seems to merge with the sky.

From the silent beauty of these landscapes, I build a narrative around the country’s history—a history where tradition meets modernity, and where nature must now coexist with a rapidly expanding or, at times, neglected urbanism.

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Far from clichés and overly loud photographs, my images are created without premeditation, grounded in reality, revealing the simplicity of a shared moment or the detail of an abandoned structure.

My gaze—shaped by my dual Franco-Algerian heritage—is drawn to what is usually outside the frame. Silent in their composition and play of light, my photographs attempt to capture the distant sound of a breeze, the whisper of a conversation between women of the same family, or the soft clinking of water in a still-filled basin.

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Empreintes is thus composed of fragments of stories, where the contemplative intensity of each image allows the narrative to unfold on its own.

This land, laid bare with both modesty and poetry, reveals its uniqueness and beauty, but also its silences and hidden spaces—signs of its contemporary reality.

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Farida Hamak