The Classroom
by Hicham Benohoud
“The Classroom explores control and discipline within postcolonial Moroccan identity through staged and unsettling classroom images created between 1994 and 2002. Frustrated by Morocco’s rigid education system in the 1990s, art teacher Hicham Benohoud used photography as a pedagogical tool, creating a makeshift darkroom in his classroom to foster collaborative, hands-on learning and encourage students to engage with creativity and identity.
The images created with his students are imbued with tension and alienation, blending absurdity, humor, and unease in subtly framed and obliquely disarming compositions. By juxtaposing the monotony of the classroom with a visual exploration of freedom and control, The Classroom constructs a playful and existential critique of postcolonial identity, where childlike creative gestures merge into a more ambiguous aesthetic that evokes oppression, violence, and isolation.
This new publication from Loose Joints draws on the artist’s original archive of negatives from the period, constructing the first comprehensive assessment of Benohoud’s groundbreaking series while highlighting the work’s enduring relevance in its engagement with performance, politics, pedagogy, and the body—decades ahead of its time.”
