アーティストとしてのキャリアをスタートさせる契機となったモノクロームの写真シリーズ作“The Classroom”は、ヒシャム・ベノフードが美術教員として勤務していた後期 4 年間に渡って制作されました。教室という密室をまるで劇場のような非現実的な空間と捉え、教師と生徒という関係を舞台監督と俳優に置き換えました。授業の合間のわずかな時間を使って行われたというこの密かな舞台劇では、不安定で窮屈な独特の違和感を感じさせる状況が意図的かつ綿密に演出されているように思えます。インタビューを終えたあとの僕自身の見解ですが、制作にあたっていた当時の混沌としたモロッコ社会で作家本人が抱えていた閉塞感や、アンフェアな政治への怒りと将来への不安といったどちらかというと負の感情がこの作品の構図やディテールの端々に投影されているなぁと感じました。結果的にこの作品がパリのGalerie VUで発表され、作家としての道を歩むことになったベノフードですが、その真意については多くを語らず、解釈はあくまで観者や批評家に預けるスタンスを取っているようです。

This monochrome photo series, “The Classroom”, which became a turning point in his life to start a career as an artist, was created in the last four years as a fine arts teacher. Regarding a classroom, a locked room, as an unrealistic space like a theater, he converted the relationship between a teacher and students into a stage director and actors. This secret stage play, performed during recess, had continued for four years until Benohoud quit teaching in 2002. His unique “something-is-not-quite-right situations” are intendedly and minutely arranged in the photos to make you feel some kind of instability or narrowness.

Born in 1968 in Marrakech. He lives between Paris, Casablanca and Marrakech. Hicham Benohoud was born in 1968 in Marrakech. After graduating in 1987 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, he moved to the regional educational center of Marrakech, to teach plastic arts in colleges. The teaching profession quickly seemed irreconcilable with his vocation as an artist: he left the teaching to go to France to join the VU gallery in Paris. He taught photography at Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing, France. In Morocco, he is represented by the Loft Art Gallery in Casablanca. From 1998, he exhibited in France including the Center Georges Pompidou, the Grand Palais, the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. He has also exhibited at the Hayward Gallery in London, the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Mori Museum in Tokyo, the Aperture Foundation in New York, the European House of Photography, the Tate Modern in London, etc. He has participated in several Biennials and International Fairs like Espanã Photo, Paris Photo, Art Paris, the Brussels Fair, the Dakar Biennale, the Bamako Photographic Meetings, the Pontevedra Biennale in Spain, the Thessaloniki Biennale in Greece, Landskrona Photo Festival in Sweden, etc. He was the winner of Photo Service in Arles and the "Visa for Creation" prize awarded by Cultures France. He has to his credit two monographs "The classroom" and "High school students by themselves" at the Editions de l'Œil in France. He has participated in numerous books on photography such as "Contemporary Photography" at Editions Scala, "The 15 years of VU agency" at Editions de la Martinière, "Objectif photographie" at Editions Autrement, "Body in contemporary art" Editions Thames and Hudson, etc. .