’The Maktub project takes the Arabic word الغربة as its starting point: pronounced ‘Al-Ghorba’, it loosely describes the experience of being away from home. For Moroccan immigrants in the diaspora, the value of this term is twofold, speaking as much to the challenge of estrangement as to the fondness of nostalgic memory. 

Raised in the Netherlands by Moroccan parents, Maryam Touzani grew up hearing stories of departures – of immigrants leaving home in search of a better future. Her project probes at the toll of dislocation in both new surroundings and those left behind; for Moroccan immigrants and their descendants, life in Europe will invariably bring racism and Islamophobia, whilst leaving home opens up another huge void, threatening the reassuring steadiness of belonging. 

Where the notion of the ‘migrant’ is too commonly examined through the prism of the dominant culture, Touzani reverses this formula; leaving the Netherlands behind, her project plays out in Morocco, combining imagery, symbols, text, and collage to form a fragmentary search for belonging. For the artist, the camera is a mean to investigate, to amass ‘traces’, to slow down time for a particular moment to emerge. In these pieces, Maktub reflects the complexities and nuances of migrant identities, taking the viewer on an ambiguous journey devoid of clear answers.