“In the Time of a Blink”

For more than three decades, Daoud Aoulad-Syad has developed a photographic practice deeply rooted in Moroccan popular culture. The margins have long been his preferred terrain: street performers, travelling entertainers, and ordinary people occupy the very centre of his visual narratives. Free from artifice, each image captures a raw moment, wrested from reality itself.

Known for his enduring commitment to analogue photography, Aoulad-Syad embraces a certain degree of imperfection, allowing the material qualities of the medium to infuse his images with texture and depth. While his work is widely associated with powerful black-and-white series, this exhibition brings together a previously unseen selection of colour photographs, a more discreet aspect of his practice that has rarely been exhibited.

Far removed from the external gaze that has long shaped representations of Morocco, Aoulad-Syad photographs from within, in close proximity to people, places, and everyday gestures. It is from this intimacy that the precision and emotional density of his work emerge.

Presented as part of the inaugural edition of Photo Tanger, this new selection brings together thirty-six colour photographs, twenty-four of which have never been printed before. The number is not incidental: it echoes the thirty-six exposures of a roll of analogue film, a direct reference to the photographic processes to which the artist remains deeply attached.

Human presence lies at the heart of these images. It operates alongside the objects, shop signs, vehicles, and fragments of urban furniture that surround it. The streets are rarely empty. Morocco appears as an inhabited landscape, shaped by constant circulation, commercial activity, moments of waiting, and forms of social wandering. A quiet yet dense vitality unfolds throughout the photographs, never seeking spectacle.

The exhibition conceives Galerie Delacroix as a space of wandering and passage. Though indoors, it becomes a street: traversed by presences, animated by flows, and punctuated by encounters. The visitor’s journey unfolds as a trajectory through Daoud Aoulad-Syad’s universe, following the rhythms of urban movement.

The first section, The Square / “Sa7a”, brings together twelve photographs drawn from the worlds of fairs, public celebrations, and collective gatherings. Here, the square emerges as a place of passage, anticipation, and shared visibility.

The second section, The Alley / “Znika”, presents twelve photographs centred on narrower circulations and scenes from everyday life. Bodies, walls, objects, and gestures create a more intimate and densely woven proximity.

The third section, The Market Gallery / “Kisarya”, gathers twelve photographs exploring commercial dynamics, shopfronts, movements, and the individuals who animate popular trading spaces. The exhibition narrows its focus here onto a Morocco in motion, shaped by discreet occupations and ordinary forms of coexistence.