In Search of Hymenaeus with Mouad Zerhouni

Name, age, where are you from, what format you like using, what are you currently working on if you are?

Hi, my name is Mouad Zerhouni. I'm 23 years old and from a small Moroccan town called Oued Amlil, Taza, though I'm currently based in Temara. I primarily work with digital photography but enjoy incorporating archival elements into my projects. Right now, I’m in the early stages of a long-term documentary project exploring how religious identity evolves across generations in Morocco.

What about your surroundings/environments and upbringing interested you? When was the first time you met photography? How did you feel when you met it?

My first encounter with photography was when I was 15, during a holiday trip back to my hometown, Oued Amlil. My aunt had just given me a smartphone, and I spent a lot of time by the river, drawn to the mountains surrounding it. Their size and stillness fascinated me; they felt almost frozen in time, like giant paintings. Looking at them made me feel so small compared to the world, and it also made me want to see more of it. As the years went by, my focus shifted slightly from the grandeur of landscapes, cityscapes, and mountains to the people who inhabited them.to their lives and stories. That’s when photography started to mean something deeper to me it became a way to document and understand the world.

Tell us about current projects you have been working on (could be any, or just work you have been doing in general). Is this story inspired out of personal reasons, or others? What are you most excited about in these projects?

One of the main projects I’m working on right now is called In Search of Hymenaeus. It is a deeply personal project that explores my connection to my hometown, Ouad Amlil, in Taza, Morocco, and the way my identity has been shaped by both my past and present experiences. The project draws inspiration from the Greek myth of Hymenaeus, the god of marriage, who is supposed to unite two people but famously abandoned his own wedding. I saw parallels in my own life my parents’ strained relationship led to a disconnect between me and my roots, and Ouad Amlil, once a place that felt full of life and meaning, became distant and desolate to me over time.

I started this project last August, with the goal of restoring and digitizing these old photographs. I wanted to uncover more about my origins and understand the people and relationships that once made Ouad Amlil feel like home. Through the restoration of these images and the research into family archives, I hope to create a fuller picture of the town and my personal connection to it. This project isn’t just about nostalgia; it’s about reclaiming the story of where I come from, and understanding how the town, and my relationship to it, has changed over time.

For years, I struggled with emotional distance and developed a distorted view of relationships. It wasn't until I had gone through some personal experiences that made me reconsider and reflect on my whole childhood and my

views, that things began to shift. In parallel, I stumbled upon old film rolls, haphazardly stored away in rusty coee bins. These photographs, fragments of my town's past, captured a time when it felt alive and vibrant before it became the empty space I now rarely visit. Seeing these images ignited something in me, making me want to document the contrast between the past and the present, not just for the town but for myself as well.

I started this project last August, with the goal of restoring and digitizing these old photographs. I wanted to uncover more about my origins and understand the people and relationships that once made Ouad Amlil feel like home. Through the restoration of these images and the research into family archives, I hope to create a fuller picture of the town and my personal connection to it. This project isn’t just about nostalgia; it’s about reclaiming the story of where I come from, and understanding how the town, and my relationship to it, has changed over time.

How did you find your visual literacy? Why are you attracted to certain images more than others?

OBSERVE, OBSERVE, AND OBSERVE! My visual literacy develops through a mix of curiosity and practice. I enjoy observing, whether it's the movement of light, people passing through the spaces they occupy, or the stillness of nature. I believe everything around us has a visual quality that's inherently satisfying to discover; we just need to look long enough to find it.

A significant part of my visual literacy also comes from social media. Seeing people's work and hearing them talk about their creative processes, whether they are photographers or not, is really important to me. I get energized when I hear people passionately discuss art.
I’m particularly drawn to photographs that carry a sense of intimacy and ambiguity images that leave you with more questions than answers. While I have a deep appreciation and passion for photojournalism and its objectivity, I still gravitate toward work that invites reflection.

Imagine meeting someone who is picking up a camera for the first time. What do you tell them?

Master your tools and play! Photography is a language, and to speak it fluently, you must first learn its alphabet.

Just as every baby instinctively makes sounds, true communication only begins when they learn to shape those sounds into words and ideas.