“Inshallah” is a photographic essay developed in an almost
literary style that flows through a contemporary Morocco, basically of
an urban nature, where the cultural mixing becomes visible in the
cohabitation of the Arabic tradition and the western cultural
influence. The display gives echoes of a Morocco where television is an
iconographic model, and all sorts of global fashions filter through it.
The exhibition, inaugurated in Fundación Tres Culturas in Seville, has travelled to Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, and to Morocco to the cities of Tetuán, Tangier and Rabat.
But it is possible to know more about the exhibition through the experience of the photographer, Alfredo Cáliz:
"The arrival. The ship docks slowly; you wish it could last forever; next to the Tangier coast forever, not to have to choose between two continents. I am not able to imagine such a narrow and broad gap in any other place in the world. You set foot on earth and feel how it is moving. You walk at a swift pace to blend in with the crowd, let us see. You listen to voices, to the high tones of the women, and to the sips of tea. You break the initial fear, you get closer to take photographs, to ask and to talk. The camera as an excuse to mix with people: one photo and one cup of tea. Little by little you search for the way of telling the tale of your own Morocco.
The photographer takes a few days –and a few films–, to clear the way that takes us to the exotic world through force of habit, if he got it sometime. You break with so many imaginary scenes created around ideas about the ‘dreamt Orient’, western hegemony and superiority over Muslims. Interest is fundamental to make way through the vegetation made up of prejudice and tangled common past.
Wandering around the old medina will be later. As visits to the Marrakech tanners, bringing sweet things and orange juice to share at breakfast time, when they have to retire to their small cave to rest because the scorching morning sun. With intensity and interest you listen to “Darixa”, the Moroccan dialect always doing the rounds and never sitting on paper. There was where, for the first time, I asked for public bath (hamman) and where Larbi brought to me a young pigeon (jaman) in his hands.
Day after day I insisted on this ceremony of sweet things and orange juice, listening and photographs. A few days later, Assis lead me by the hand to his home and invited me to have lunch with his family. We ate a lot, I fell asleep on the carpet. When I awakened, Assis was beside me, as if protecting my sleep. He smiled at me, stood up and pulled me to the door. He carried some crusts of bread under his arm. I followed him perplexed to La Menara lake, where we fed the fishes.
And journeys, comings and goings followed one to other. And photographs piled up one upon other, while the thousand stories dissolved in only one. The one of a child who follows me on the way out Imilchil and says goodbye with his hand being level with his chest; Latifah´s father squatting in Safy countryside to pick up capers; meeting Caterina at any bar of Lavapiés; wandering about El Rastro on Sundays; Chukri's books; the gale in Essauira and its so wet Portuguese walls; the trips by bus and the “sir allah sir” cry as a litany in my light sleep; the trips to other Islamic countries; my grand mother’s death; exchanging photographs for money, and having money between those who have less; the hot soup and the songs in the “halca” of Zacarías.
I have photographed in time of boats and in time of growing walls. I have photographed any Islam those days when the two towers fell. I have photographed to try to understand. One travels to Morocco and closes the circle.
The exhibition, inaugurated in Fundación Tres Culturas in Seville, has travelled to Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, and to Morocco to the cities of Tetuán, Tangier and Rabat.
But it is possible to know more about the exhibition through the experience of the photographer, Alfredo Cáliz:
"The arrival. The ship docks slowly; you wish it could last forever; next to the Tangier coast forever, not to have to choose between two continents. I am not able to imagine such a narrow and broad gap in any other place in the world. You set foot on earth and feel how it is moving. You walk at a swift pace to blend in with the crowd, let us see. You listen to voices, to the high tones of the women, and to the sips of tea. You break the initial fear, you get closer to take photographs, to ask and to talk. The camera as an excuse to mix with people: one photo and one cup of tea. Little by little you search for the way of telling the tale of your own Morocco.
The photographer takes a few days –and a few films–, to clear the way that takes us to the exotic world through force of habit, if he got it sometime. You break with so many imaginary scenes created around ideas about the ‘dreamt Orient’, western hegemony and superiority over Muslims. Interest is fundamental to make way through the vegetation made up of prejudice and tangled common past.
Wandering around the old medina will be later. As visits to the Marrakech tanners, bringing sweet things and orange juice to share at breakfast time, when they have to retire to their small cave to rest because the scorching morning sun. With intensity and interest you listen to “Darixa”, the Moroccan dialect always doing the rounds and never sitting on paper. There was where, for the first time, I asked for public bath (hamman) and where Larbi brought to me a young pigeon (jaman) in his hands.
Day after day I insisted on this ceremony of sweet things and orange juice, listening and photographs. A few days later, Assis lead me by the hand to his home and invited me to have lunch with his family. We ate a lot, I fell asleep on the carpet. When I awakened, Assis was beside me, as if protecting my sleep. He smiled at me, stood up and pulled me to the door. He carried some crusts of bread under his arm. I followed him perplexed to La Menara lake, where we fed the fishes.
And journeys, comings and goings followed one to other. And photographs piled up one upon other, while the thousand stories dissolved in only one. The one of a child who follows me on the way out Imilchil and says goodbye with his hand being level with his chest; Latifah´s father squatting in Safy countryside to pick up capers; meeting Caterina at any bar of Lavapiés; wandering about El Rastro on Sundays; Chukri's books; the gale in Essauira and its so wet Portuguese walls; the trips by bus and the “sir allah sir” cry as a litany in my light sleep; the trips to other Islamic countries; my grand mother’s death; exchanging photographs for money, and having money between those who have less; the hot soup and the songs in the “halca” of Zacarías.
I have photographed in time of boats and in time of growing walls. I have photographed any Islam those days when the two towers fell. I have photographed to try to understand. One travels to Morocco and closes the circle.