Hicham Benohoud's Classroom Photography Series Explores Post-Colonial Morocco

Moroccan artist Hicham Benohoud created his photographic series 'The Classroom' between 1994 and 2002 while working as an art teacher, transforming classrooms into improvised studios. Born in Marrakech in 1968, Benohoud began photographing students spontaneously to combat boredom, using them as models in staged scenes that critique authoritarian educational systems and Morocco's post-colonial identity. The project, which he describes as a radical discussion of control, initially lacked artistic references and was first published in a photobook in 2001 after an exhibition at Galerie Vu in Paris. In 2025, London-based publisher Loose Joints produced a new edition featuring over two thousand previously unseen images from negatives, which won the Aperture award for best photobook at Paris Photo. Benohoud, who never wanted to teach and left the profession once he established artistic contacts in France, emphasizes that the work explores the experimental freedom of art, citing critic Mário Pedrosa's assertion that 'art is the experimental exercise of freedom.' The article's author, Rafael Adorján, reflects on his own 18-year experience as a public school art teacher in Rio de Janeiro, drawing parallels to Benohoud's work and referencing Uruguayan artist-educator Luis Camnitzer's critique of formal art education.