La Bête A Modern Tale

In 2012, Benabderrahmane returned to her home country of Morocco after 12 years, crossing the dunes and plains to create Super-8 films mapping out the ever-changing landscape. The film stills collected in this book invite us to follow the path winding between tradition and modernity. We travel to the Bouregreg Valley, a new cultural centre which symbolizes the modernity and changing physiognomy of ancestral lands. Further afield, we discover the desert plains of Chichaoua, rocky and stripped back, where sleepy villages nestle in a place where time stands still.

From these familiar spaces and bodies, in which the history of contemporary Morocco is played out with all its contradictions, Benabderrahmane invites us to experience a sensitive, mineral and instinctive Moroccan history, where stones tumble, blood clots and where the artist’s gaze comes to a place at once familiar and ever-changing.

"Benabderrahmane documents how tradition and modernity collide and contrast in Moroccan landscapes, and the resulting images are visceral: honing in on hands, feet, eyes and silhouettes as they sift through sand or hold beads, while other hazy shots depict the build up of modern urban landscapes."