neighbours, marrakech. photography as a living exhibition
i find it endlessly beautiful how a home can hold so many stories.
hands that imagined and build it. objects and textiles gathered inside it. people who come and go. sun and her light that visits each room a little differently every day. each season.
when i met nina and cyrill and they shared with me their vision for neighbours. i felt something of our shared love for morocco. the way a place can find its way into your heart slowly and in so many ways until one day you find yourself wanting to make something from all that you have come to love.
i admired this from the very beginning. how their family had taken something they felt so deeply and turned it into something they could share. something to give back in their own little way.
there is such beauty in the thoughtfulness behind what they were creating. a care in the smallest details . a respect for the hands and materials that bring a house to life. and a wish to make something that feels connected to the place it calls home.
i found myself thinking about this body of work. how a place can tell a story before we know its words. how a house can hold thoughts and dreams of the people who imagined it and how their care finds its way into the smallest of details. sometimes lifes most beautiful things begin with simply wanting to belong to a place. to understand it a little more. to listen. to learn. and to share something of what you have found there.
i spent time photographing marrakech. its architecture. its colours. friends. life. beauty being made. moments around food and rituals that bring people together. looking at the city through all these little windows and wondering how i might help bring some of this feeling into their residence.
each photograph began somewhere outside the riad. different neighbourhoods of marrakech. in a moment or a detail that had caught my eye. eventually these photographs found their way onto the walls. becoming part of the interiors. part of the experience of being within neighbours.
i love that they now live a life of their own. that someone might wake up beside one. meet another one during breakfast. or sit with a photograph for a little while without knowing quite why it caught their attention.
maybe it reminds someone of something. maybe it makes someone curious about a street they havent wandered down yet. or a craft they havent noticed so deeply before.
i like to imagine photographs travelling a little further in this way. beyond the walls of the riad into the memories people make here and their experience of marrakech.
for me this is what makes the neighbours project so special. my photographs arent simply pictures of a place. they have become part of one.
a living exhibition, woven into the everyday life of of a very beautiful house. and perhaps somehow in their own way an invitation to look a little closer.
somewhere along the way this project became about more than photographs. it became about friendship and the lovely things that can grow when people share a little piece of their hearts with one another.
to nina and cyrill and family.. thank you for inviting me into your world. for trusting me with something so close to your hearts. and for the kindness and care you have shared along the way. i came to help capture the essence of neighbours and found neighbours of my own.
my friends. my neighbours in every sense. and what a precious thing this is.
love and colour,
your friend forever.
sarah jessica marie burns xx
SMALL EDITION FINE ART WORKS. PRINTED ON ARCHIVAL COTTON RAG
three pieces from this wider body of work
stories within stories
and then once the house was ready. i returned to experience its beauty with my camera. to see how everything had come together. the spaces. the light. the wonderful details. the tables ready to be gathered around. the food and the stories that would soon unfold there.
i was now photographing neighbours. their story. the things they had dreamt of and brought to life. and somewhere in this moment i felt my own body of work began to find its place within theirs. i think this is one of the loveliest things. how a story begins with one person. then finds its way into another becoming something new and entirely differently beautiful along the way.
stories within stories. photographs within a house. photographs leaving my hands and beginning a new life of their own.
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