French photographer, born in 1992
Lives and works in Paris
simonarcache.com
@simon.arcache
Project supported: MP#04 – Les fils de Bambara

Born in 1992, Simon Arcache took up photography in the United States, where he accompanied blues musicians on stage as a guitarist and shared their daily lives. Since then, he has taken an interest in the intimacy of different communities, inviting us to rethink our relationship with the other, with identity, with societies and with history. His training as a musician brings him into close contact with the performing arts sector, with which he maintains close professional ties.

“Originally descended from slaves, the Gnaoua have over time developed a form of syncretism between Moroccan Islam and the plurality of their ancestors’ beliefs. They are renowned in Morocco for their musical trances, performed as part of the lila ritual.
The encounter with the music industry and the arrival of the Internet have changed the Gnaoua’s vision of their practice. Elders now fear the disappearance of certain rituals and a loss of meaning, while others see it as the logical progression of a culture opening up to the world around it.
My photography has sometimes come up against the gates of the sacred. But that’s of little importance; I’ve received everything I’ve been given. Seized by a collective intensity that gradually became familiar to me, I photographed what we experienced together, a daily life cradled between tradition and modernity.”