Seif Kousmate - Waha 3, 2020

Inkjet print on Hahnemühle bamboo paper
23 x 30 cm
Edition of 15 + 2AP
Signed and numbered on a separate label

About the work
In Waha (“oasis” in Arabic) Seif Kousmate considers his home country, Morocco, and puts his own practice into question to explore the artistic side of photography. Once agricultural hotbeds, trade hubs, and biosphere reserves, oases suffer from the overexploitation of their raw materials and are devastated by cycles of drought. Their surface area is progressively decreasing. Discouraged, the current generation is deserting them. The artist feels affected by this transformation. To express in a subtle way the degradation of these once fertile areas, he stains his images with acid and corrupts them using remnants of the local flora. Thus, content and form, subject and materiality merge to question issues of representation. Both in the photographer’s art and at the surface of the image, poetry and politics flicker, to tell the story of the ecological, economic and social reality of today’s oases.

About the photographer
Seif Kousmate (1988, MA), is a self-taught photographer and the co-founder of KOZ collective, based in Morocco. He developed a visual vocabulary that stands between documentary photography and the poetry of fine art photography.
After a career as a Project Manager in the civil engineering sector, he dedicated himself professionally to photography in 2016. Since then, he has been working on different visual projects in Africa including migration and youth. He has worked for three years on the immigration of sub-Saharans on the land border between Morocco and Europe, more specifically on Mount Gourougou where he spent several weeks in immersion. He also worked on traditional slavery in Mauritania and Rwandan Youth in 2018 and 2019. Since 2020, Kousmate has been working on the project Waha, a multi-dimensional essay that captures the consequences of climate change and globalization on the oases ecosystem in Morocco.

He was selected for the 6x6 Global Talent Program by World Press Photo in 2020 and was one of the Magnum Foundation and Prince Claus' grantees. His work has been exhibited in Europe and Africa; it has also been published in international magazines and newspapers such as The York Times, Newsweek, The Guardian, El Pais among others.

Seif Kousmate was one of the Foam Talents of 2022.

About buying this work
This photo print has a small white border around all sides. For a framer this border is necessary to be able to frame it properly. The print will be carefully wrapped and send as an insured package. You will receive an e-mail with a Track & Trace code when the package is on its way. For more information or questions about buying this print, please contact the Foam Editions team.

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