Safi – After its debut in Marrakech, “Cross Lens,” an exhibition showcasing the work of eight Moroccan photographers, opened in Amsterdam on Friday and will run until August 12.
Curated by contemporary art specialist Saber Benjah, it brings together around 20 photographs exploring themes of memory, migration, and belonging.
Sarah Amrani, Sabrina Charehbili, Jinane Ennasri, Safaa Kotbi, Mounir Raji, Fatimazohra Serri, Ismail Zaidy and Dunya Zita are the eight photographers featured in the exhibition.
Each of them turns the camera toward their own path between Morocco and the Netherlands, tracing personal experiences shaped by movement between the two countries.
The work moves across cultural tradition, everyday life, and landscapes both urban and rural. It reads less as a single statement than as a set of overlapping points of view.
The photographs circle a single question: how people see themselves and one another, through a lens.
Some works engage directly with migration and memory, while others focus on beauty, everyday life, and personal storytelling.
Presented together, they form a dialogue across countries, generations, and different ways of seeing the world.
The venue itself reinforces the exhibition’s message. Rather than a polished museum space, the show is presented at MAQAM, a cultural center in Kolenkitbuurt, a working-class district of Amsterdam with strong Moroccan-immigrant roots.
The aim is to bring work on migration and belonging directly to the community that lives it, especially young people in the neighbourhood, rather than limiting it to the traditional art world.
This outreach beyond the gallery space feels particularly fitting here.
Morocco and the Netherlands have maintained ties for more than four centuries, and a significant Moroccan-Dutch community now lives the very back-and-forth reflected in these photographs.
“Cross Lens” leans into exactly that: stories told by Moroccan image-makers whether they live in Rabat or Rotterdam, and the threads between them.
