The gazelle with golden eyes, 2023/2024
Moroccan tales and legends vividly evoke the special relationship between humans and animals, full of poetry, magic and animism. This form of storytelling also reveals the often precarious reality of everyday Moroccan life, which is steeped in mutual aid, tradition and patriarchy, while leaving room for a certain poetry. In one beautiful tale, a gazelle with golden eyes appears to an old Tuareg exhausted by the vicissitudes of life. This gazelle with green horns is magical. It speaks, and man and animal join forces. It will protect him, help him and enable him to rediscover family harmony. Nature is very much in evidence, the light is strange and this tale is full of poetry.
In Morocco, complex and contradictory links are forged between humans and animals in different social environments, whether in the home, the family, the city or the countryside. Animals can be the subject of affection and tenderness, like the cat, the Prophet Mohammed’s favourite animal and loved throughout the country. Or the donkey, renowned for its kindness and sociability. Its stamina makes it ideal for all kinds of hard work. In the book Kalila and Dimna, the animals speak, but in real life they don’t always make themselves understood by humans. Inspired by the magic of these tales, without wishing to illustrate them, I am in search of this magical, illusory and invisible gazelle.
In La gazelle aux yeux d’or (The gazelle with golden eyes), the hand-to-hand encounter that is typical of my photographic work takes on a particular form: strange and familiar at the same time. Thanks to the radiant yellow and pink light and the magic of the settings, a form of timelessness is at play in this new approach to the animal.
Tina Merandon
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