A moroccan escape through traditions and modernity.

We just needed something different. A breathtaking, uncommon travel experience, something that would be able to make us step out of our comfort zone, but comfort us in the way we approach our glasses. A journey full of unexpected meetings and paradoxes. Without thinking further, we took the photographer Victor Pattyn on board and got on the first plane to Morocco. No plan, no schedule, no must-see people, places or things. Just us, armed with a bag full of glasses and an analog camera.

What directly struck us when we landed in the middle of the Moroccan desert was the idea of timelessness that this magnificent landscapes and its population carried within them. The answer to our quest for paradoxes stood just in front of our eyes : traditions embracing modernity, modernity embracing traditions.During our road trip through the infinite sand dune-scapes, we reached small desert villages and met with locals still living in a nomadic setting. They were quite intrigued by these two intruders and after some shy exchanges, we finally started more laid-down conversations, helped by the bag full of glasses that tickled their curiosity. Open to our enquiries, none of them questioned why we wanted to photograph them with these frames on. No-one objected. They just picked up a pair and struck a pose. Naturally.

By meeting the moroccan nomads, we also found parallels with our own craft – modernity mixed with tradition. For us, the idea of timelessness, or even learning from the past, isn’t some kind of theme for a branding purpose.The idea that the answer is not always found in novelty, and sometimes that the best fit lies in old ways, could be the perfect explanation to our digging trips. These 10 days in Morocco became more than a quest for adventure and paradoxes, it strengthened our belief that you can’t separate old and new. 

In a nutshell, modernity is simply an expression of our past, made for the future.

A series by Victor Pattyn, exhibited at Ravenstein 44 on 17-20 May 2018