Hicham Benohoud

Frustrated by Morocco’s rigid educational system of the 1990s, art teacher Hicham Benohoud used photography as a pedagogical tool, creating a makeshift darkroom in his classroom to foster collaborative and hands-on learning, encouraging students to engage with creativity and questions of identity.

The resulting images created with his students are marked by tension and alienation, blending absurdity, humor, and unease in their exquisitely framed and obliquely disarming compositions. In juxtaposing the monotony of the classroom with a visual exploration of both freedom and control, The Classroom builds a playful and existential critique of postcolonial identity, where childlike creative gestures merge into a more ambiguous aesthetic that hints at oppression, violence, and isolation.

A recent revisit of the project draws from the artist’s original archive of negatives from the time, building the first comprehensive appraisal of Benohoud’s ground breaking series while highlighting the modern relevance of the work in its engagement with performance, politics, pedagogy, and the body decades ahead of its time.