Leila Alaoui
Born in Paris, 1982 - 2016 and lives in Paris and Morocco
Leila Alaoui is a French-Moroccan photographer and video artist whose experiences across different cultural and geographic environments inform her critical and creative practice. Born in Paris in 1982, she studied photography at the City University of New York before spending time in Morocco and Lebanon. Her work explores the construction of identity and cultural diversity, often through the prism of the migration stories that intersect the contemporary Mediterranean. Her images express social realities using a visual language that combines the narrative depth of documentary storytelling and the aesthetic sensibilities of fine art.
Her work has been exhibited internationally since 2009, including at the Institut du Monde Arabe, Art Dubai and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and has been published in newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times and Vogue. Today she lives and works between Marrakech and Beirut.
Alaoui was killed in 2016 in Burkina Faso, during a terrorist attack.
