By Nii B. Andrews
The celebrated young French-Moroccan photographer and video artist- Leila Alaoui has had an exhibition hall dedicated to her memory in Paris.
The event occurred on September 20, during the Second Biennale of Photography in the Contemporary Arab World organized by the Institute of the Arab World (IMA) and the House of Photography (MEP).
The Biennial opened on September 13 and showcases the photographic talents in the Arab world.
Leila Alaoui had exhibited her strikingly detailed photographic portraits at the First Biennial.
However, she was seriously wounded during a terrorist attack in Ouagadougou in early 2016; sadly she died there a few days later as a result of her injuries; she was 33 years old.
The mayor of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, Christophe Girard, described Alaoui as a citizen of the world.
“This is the first time that a young artist photographer has had her name permanently registered in the history of a city hall of the French capital,” he said.
Leila Alaoui was awarded, posthumously, the ‘Knight’ Grade Order Ouissam Alaouite on August 21 at the 2016 Youth Festival in Morocco.
Later during the same year, on December 12, she received the Order of “Commander” of the Order of Arts and Letters, for her significant contribution to the arts from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.
Alaoui was described by the novelist, Tahar Ben Jelloun, as “a passionate artist who knew how to detect reality behind appearances, how to show the splendour of a body behind the veil of prejudice”.
At the time of her death she was one week into an assignment for Amnesty International for a women’s rights photography project.
Alaoui was born in Paris in 1982 (to a Moroccan father and French mother); she grew up in Marrakech and studied photography at the City University of New York before returning to Morocco in 2008.
As part of her professional duties, she traveled extensively in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.
Her work explores the construction of identity and cultural diversity, often through the prism of the migration stories that intersect the contemporary Mediterranean.