if love is real

Far from the myths associated with Tangier, this is an exploration of love and the dreams it inspires, a poetic discovery of the city, its dreamlike power and the vitality that emanates from its inhabitants.

At first, I couldn't bring myself to photograph Tangier.

At first glance, you discover a well-established mythology, a history embroidered with a thousand literary legends, and it takes time to refine the emotions associated with that first encounter, which is immediately passionate but also very crowded.

It was by embarking on a fairly broad personal research project on the theme of love in Moroccan society, its constraints, its impediments, its possible and impossible variations, its prohibitions, its Criminal Code too... that the soul of Tangier gradually revealed itself. For the city still feeds on those who embody it, all inhabited by complex desires, an immense hunger for life, a thirst for love that is sometimes inexpressible and often tinged with great loneliness.

The vibration of the “spirit of the place” was finally revealed to me through the gaze, through a form of communion with the gaze of its inhabitants, but also with the force of their words and the power of their dreams.

This communion, sealed far from the bright lights and signposted walks, enabled me to begin a photographic work in 2023 that lies at the crossroads of poetry, spirituality, and onirism. This research, which is still ongoing, is gradually nourished by a renewed experience of places, and in particular of the night, a space-time of endless possibilities. For if love is real, it never sleeps.

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The first stage of this work will be the basis for a solo exhibition in 2026 in Tangier, at the Les Insolites gallery and bookstore. Ultimately, it should be the subject of a book.