Tsawwar… Charaf Lahib
"This photograph was taken on June 14, 2020, in a small village near Kelaa des Sraghna in central Morocco. It is part of my project, The Red Poppy, through which I return visually and emotionally to the place that shaped my early childhood before my family and I moved to the city when I was six years old. Through this project, I try to build a visual memory for the children in my family who still live in the village, a memory that offers them something of what I lost when I left this place so early in my life. In the details of the village and its light and faces, I try to get closer to the child I once was and to reclaim what remains in my memory from that period. The photograph is an attempt to hold onto a moment that connects past and present and to listen again to the place where the first contours of my identity were formed."
Born in 1995, near El Kelaa des Sraghna, Morocco, Charaf Lahib is a Casablanca-based visual artist working primarily with photography and video. Since 2014, his practice has explored themes of childhood, migration, memory, and social and environmental change in rural contexts, blending poetic sensitivity with documentary depth. His work has been shown internationally at exhibitions and festivals, including Rencontres d’Arles, the Angkor Photo Festival, Paris Photo–Polycopies, and the National Museum of Photography in Rabat. Alongside his artistic practice, he works as a freelance photographer and videographer on cultural, social, and humanitarian projects.
Tsawwar is an ongoing visual series in Daftar which explores the stories behind a photograph, taken in the region or by an Arab photographer, written in their own words.
