Mehdy Mariouch is one of the 25 photographers shortlisted for the 2020 CAP Prize for Contemporary African Photography.
His motivation:
Hammam Diaries by Mehdy Mariouch is a trip back in time. The artist dives back into escaped, hardly forgotten, and hidden childhood souvenirs, or memories through his exceptional, unique, and powerfully emotional photographs.
The bath benches: those magical places where pale and evanescent shadows cross through an expanding vape that covers each corner of the place. It is where water is streaming as usual and where various silhouettes pass through all day long.
The images immerse us in an intimate world within a public space where social gatherings, meetings or encounters happen. It is usually where opposite feelings and emotions merge and mingle such as relaxation and tiredness, happiness and sadness, nostalgia and joy, melancholy and euphoria.
The project is an integral part of a series of photographic projects about memory and abandonment. ‘Hammam Diaries’ represents a challenge to the artist.
Mehdy Mariouch shares his sociological perspective and works on a documentary by using his camera to capture some intimate moments of naked or half-naked people in Hammam and also moments of cultural transmission and sociological inheritance.
The 5 winning projects will be announced on 20 September 2020 at the Photo Basel International Art Fair.
The call for entries for next year's CAP Prize.
Instagram @capprize
