In LES OFFRANDES DE L'OMBRE the Tunisian photographer Kamel Dridi seeks to give moments from their youth back to adults from the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria). The series shows a number of religious rituals that are inextricably linked with life in the Maghreb, such as daily prayer and purification in the hammam (the Turkish bath). In order to emphasise the intimacy of the rituals, Dridi adopts the attitude of a voyeur. Moreover, in doing so he represents the standpoint of a child, which reinforces the nostalgic charge of the photographs. But LES OFFRANDES DE L'OMBRE will not evoke only positive feelings, Dridi acknowledges. Many from the Maghreb merely found the religious practices of their elders tedious, because as a child they could not for the moment be the centre of interest.

Kamel Dridi (b. 1951) moved to Paris in the early 1980s, where he did portraits of artists and performers. Mediterranean women were among his later photographic subjects, and he did an advertising campaign for Chanel. He had to give up photography in 1990 because of illness.

Courtesy Fnac (France)