Leila Alaoui (1982-2016) was born in Paris to a French mother and a Moroccan father. She grew up in Marrakech, Morocco, and moved to the United States at the age of eighteen to study at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, obtaining a degree in Social Sciences. She later continued her studies at the City University of New York and, alongside her academic training, worked as an assistant to photographers and filmmakers on various projects, such as Shirin Neshat’s Women Without Men (2009) and Spike Lee’s Inside Man (2006).

In one of her most famous series, Les Marocains [The Moroccans] (2010-2014), the artist travels around Morocco with a portable photographic studio, setting it up in the streets of urban and rural areas, inviting passers-by to have their portraits taken on the spot. In the images, their profiles stand out against a black background. Detached from their context, but secretly rooted in it, their traditional clothes become an invitation to an encounter. Nothing in their expressions denotes sadness or anger. On the contrary, they inspire courage and affection in the viewer who, although they have the power to look at or turn away from the Moroccan who can’t see them, feels exposed to the unknown.

A few years earlier, in the series No Pasara [They Shall Not Pass] (2008), the artist recorded young people who dreamed of crossing the small stretch of Atlantic that separates North Africa from Europe. These images capture a desire at odds with reality: children and teenagers living in suspension, aspiring to a horizon that is forbidden to them, but which holds the promise of a possible future. The invisible border between the countries constantly insinuates itself into the landscapes – in the coastal gorge, in partially collapsed walls, in mountains of garbage that seem easily passable – in opposition to their still hesitant figures.

Throughout Leila Alaoui’s work, there is a deep respect for the people she photographs. Through their cultural particularities, the artist distinguished and communicated their individualities, to the point of provoking in the public the sensation of an unsettling closeness, which puts into perspective both the idea that some have rights that are denied to others and the very notion of borders. For Alaoui, it was inconceivable that so many people would risk their lives or sacrifice their identities in crossings that she herself could make safely, protected by the privilege of her French passport.

Hired in 2016 by Amnesty International to develop a project on women’s rights in Burkina Faso, Leila Alaoui was the victim of a terrorist attack days after she arrived in the capital, Ouagadougou, and died at the age of 33.