The Classroom- Hicham Benohoud

Hicham Benohoud has turned his art classes in Marrakech, Morocco, into a creative workshop. Together with his students, he explores themes such as freedom and power, identity and imagination.

Born in Marrakech, Morocco, in 1968, Hicham Benohoud studied visual arts in France before returning to his home country in 1987 to teach art to pupils aged between 11 and 15. He found the rigidity of his four-hour lessons tedious and so, he says, “I set up a makeshift studio in the classroom to photograph the students”.

Between 1994 and 2002, together with his pupils, he produced hundreds of black-and-white photographs, collected in the series La salle de classe, now published in a new book by Loose Joints under the English title The Classroom. In the images, girls and boys sit on desks stacked one on top of the other or play with costumes made of plastic and cardboard. “Through these photos I speak of Morocco as I see it, criticising the education system’s inability to offer young people true freedom,” said Benohoud, highlighting the socio-political dimension of the project.

Many of his students came from families with limited financial means; the girls were often forced to marry at a very young age and the boys did not continue their studies due to a lack of resources. With this project, Benohoud transformed the classroom into a space where control and discipline clash with the imagination and identity of the girls and boys, blending absurdity, humour and unease. In this way, the school became a world where these young people could find a genuine space for self-expression.

‘The Classroom’, like Benohoud’s other projects, explores the themes of freedom, control and power. By distorting reality, the photographer offers a critique of his country’s postcolonial identity, revealing the hopes and frustrations of contemporary society. 

The photographer

Hicham Benohoud (b. 1968, Marrakech) is a Moroccan visual artist whose innovative photography blends elements of painting and performance to explore identity politics and power relations. Frequently incorporating his own body as a subject, his practice is characterized by staged, constructed imagery, as seen in his acclaimed series La Salle de Classe (The Classroom) and Azemmour. A graduate of the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, Benohoud's work transforms everyday objects into unsettling, thought-provoking compositions.

Benohoud has published two monographs — La Salle de Classe (Les éditions de l'œil, 2001) and Des Lycéens par Eux-mêmes (Les éditions de l'œil, 2002) — and contributed to significant collective photography books, including La Photographie Contemporaine (Scala, 2009) and The Body in Contemporary Art (Thames & Hudson, 2009). His work has been exhibited internationally at the Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, and Hayward Gallery, and features in prestigious collections such as Tate Modern and Fonds National d’Art Contemporain. He has received numerous accolades, including Prix Photo Service Prize in Arles and the Prix Visa pour la Création, awarded by Cultures France.

edited: Gemma D. F. and Alfredo L. M.