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@salma.refass

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I make, write, and archive in pursuit of the utopia.
Counter-histories and refusal.
📍Brussels

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therapeutic yapping session because why the hell not. I’ve hit a crossroads a few years ago, and it redirected me, recentered me. I had to readjust myself to myself as Nina Simone said. It led to where I am now. I’ve been working on something, that I’ll share in the coming weeks. But I felt the need to preface it by means of a reintroduction - one that introduced the things that matter most: what made and shaped a person.
You’ll be hearing a lot more of my yapping soon :-) taken in Brussels,Belguim by @salma.refass

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a month ago

Another year of getting older and I’ve never felt the privilege of being alive more acutely than I do now. That lingering fear of getting older that we’re taught as nauseam is gone for good, and all I have left is gratitude. To grow older in a world unraveling is a strange privilege, but a privilege nonetheless.

Growing older means greater coherence between me and myself. It means greater courage and the necessity for radicalizing. Radical tenderness and love, radical fearlessness and refusal.

It’s saying f**k off to being reasonable and yes to building the utopia with those who feel every pain this world throws at them and still choose to show up for something greater than themselves - with joy and love.

Scorpio ♏️ fire has never felt more relatable 😅

May we all be free. May we all be held and loved ✨✨🙏🏾 by @salma.refass

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a year ago

Selfie 📸 >>>> selfie 🤳

Why does it make egocentric behavior more bearable and palatable? No idea, but it does. by @salma.refass

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2 years ago

I’ve never been a fan of this whole new year charade. I’ve learned to see it as one more pit stop in the course of the year - I have one in the spring and one in August - to retire from the frenzy of the world, take stock and realign with oneself where necessary.
I pray for peace, elevated minds and a downfall of the current systems that are destroying humanity and this planet 💛 L’amour, toujours. by @salma.refass

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10 months ago

Body & movement explorations continued. The questions remain the same, but they take on a different shade and texture depending who is with me in the studio. In exploring the body as a tool, as both a site of memory and hope, I’ve learned to let whatever must seep through during the shoots seep through. Movement becomes a means to that person’s truth. I’ve learned over the course of the last year, to be in tandem with the other persons body, instead of directing it. To let go of wanting things to be a certain way. For this series to exist as a collective exploration, not just my exploration: a series of wordless conversation between me and the people I am lucky enough to photograph - each with our questions, histories, doubts, memories, fears and joys.

This is a long work in progress :-) I’ve also learned to be patient. Some flowers take longer to bloom. I’ve made peace with that.

Gracias @juana_basto, esa estrella que tú eres by @salma.refass

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9 months ago

Growing up in Morocco in the 90s and 2000s, I spent most of my childhood asking myself why I had so much while so many didn’t. In adulthood, I kept on asking the same questions, in an almost obsessive manner. So I ended up spending so much of my adult life trying to understand how privilege is manufactured, how disparities are sustained. To get a grasp on how policies are often used to cement inequalities.

What I came to realize is that I’ve grown up in a country built on a deeply deeply entrenched class structure/ every inequality you looked at had class attached to it, be it social, geographical, gendered … if you understand the class structure you understand the power structure, you understand the country and its past 60 years of history.

Over a 60 year period, those at the top got to live a life of uber privilege while the rest of the population barely got by. It impacts every aspect of life, but the two that are the biggest determinants for a life well lived? Education and Health. Precisely what the protesters are demanding (and what so many segments of the population throughout the country have been demanding.

(Here I am not even going to talk about those so marginalized that we’ve all collectively pretended they’re not even part of the country anymore - later)

And those of us born with privilege - and here I mean privilege in relative term - are taught that this order is normal.

I’ve never been able to accept that. Not at home, not elsewhere. I’ve never been able to go back and live at home because I refuse to be part of this machinery of exploitation. I’ve never found the path for me to help break this cycle.

The rhetoric of progress used by the “elite” in Morocco is the same I’ve heard elsewhere, in other “developing” (I hate this word) countries where the people/masses have every bit of hope and dignity taken away from them.

So change starts with acknowledging the privilege you were born into, for no merit of your own. It starts with seeing reality for what it is. It starts with acknowledging another human being when they tell you they’re hurting.
Bare f****** minimum.

حريتنا
المغرب ديالنا
Maroc
Freekoulchi by @salma.refass

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a year ago

The harrowing journey to stillness. I’m sure you understand.

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#selfportrait #fujifilm_xseries #fujifilm #portrait #blackandwhitephotography by @salma.refass

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3 years ago

An overexposed Portra 800, a 1962 Nikon F doing its last dance, for a very special moment. It is hard to explain what the backstage of a live show - regardless of what is being performed - feels like. How profound the sense of community yet how fleeting it all is. How supportive the atmosphere yet how tense the air is. The rituals, the warm up, the kind words. A moment I cherish as an insider and outsider. Privileged to capture these moments. Here’s to more of this in the new year. by @salma.refass

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10 months ago

Capturing rehearsals
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#shoots #filmphotography #analogphotography #portra #dancephotography #artproject #photography #fuji #fujimag #websitepost by @salma.refass

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2 years ago

WORK IN PROGRESS.

Part 1 |
A personal obsession of mine is at the root of this project: the body. The space it/they/we occupy. How a body occupies said space. Why is it that “my whole body hurts” is not understood to be the same as “I am hurting”. You see how I am using “the” instead of “my”? It says it all. A war that started so long ago between the self and the body, a war that I, myself, wage on my body. Nihilistic and nombrilistic tendencies leading me to forgetting what our bodies are meant to be: “Our window to the world”, Merleau-Ponty would say speaking of the physical body. I started asking: what has become of that window? And I never stopped asking. That’s how I landed here.

In my head, a body was a collection of limbs, organs, bones, tendons and skin, all made up of cells that kept you alive, that allowed you to have a shot at building the life you’ve imagined. An ableist and reductionist view I had to contend with (I really am the product of my environment).

It took years, maybe decades, to undo it. To start seeing the body, my body, for what it really was: the home that houses my rebellion, my freedom, my identity and my emotions.

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#artproject #photography #fuji #fujimag #websitepost by @salma.refass

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3 years ago

Posting the unposted I’ve been wanting to post for a while and thought about posting too many times. Here, now it’s posted. With some Snoh to go with it because it never hurts.

More than a random shot, this marked for me the beginning of a re-introduction of sorts, a re-introduction of myself to me. With it also began a kind of artistic exploration I couldn’t have dreamed of (still in its inception). by @salma.refass

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3 years ago

Current exhibit of the @barjeelart - Sneakhotep, Mehdi Saeedi, Marwan, Simone Baltaxé, Latifa Toujani, Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq, Djamila Bent Mohamed, Sadok Gmach, Raafat Ballan, Chaibia, Aicha Haddad, Fatima Hassan El Farouj, Mohammed Omar Khalil and many more (not all pictured). Belkahia, Melehi and Chebaa on one wall, outside of their home country. All under one roof, telling tales and stories from the region that often go unheard, that are often not often given a chance to exist in this world. Arab (in the widest sense of the word) artists from Morocco to Iraq and Sudan. Art from the region being given the space it deserves ❤️ by @salma.refass

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2 years ago