Ziad Naitaddi

His interest in photography started while self-taught visual artist Ziad Naitaddi, born in Rabat in 1995,  was dreaming to become a filmmaker. Since 2013, he devoted his time to photography through a cinematic research which he explores in the form of documentary and fiction.

His work tries to express a state of human soul by photographing characters he identifies with – approaching them and expressing their inner emotional worlds. He is working currently on migration and identity, which he considers as a tragic face up to the other « place, person and culture ». Through his photography, he aims to show the emotional side of this topic which symbolizes the tragic dimension of migration and which is a difficult step that the human has to face. His projects question and spot the genesis of a distress, a lost identity (?) and an adventurous search of answers in the long living experience called life. Working more through the optic of his personal perception, his work experiences the life and human as pure profound emotion.

Naitaddi’s work has been exhibited in different shows, publications and collections, such as the Center of Contemporary Photographic Art – Villa Perochon, 13th Dakar Biennale, Rencontres Photographiques at CDG Foundation, Dapper Foundation, Image Festival Amman, Beirut Image Festival, 16 th Angkor Photo Festival. etc.
He won the ‘Prize of the Jury’ during the 2nd edition of ‘Les Nuits Photographiques d’Essaouira’ (2017) and he was nominated as ‘Coup de Cœur du Jury’ for the Prix Résidence pour la Photographie de la Fondation des Treilles (2018).
He participated also in several artist residencies, such as the 23 th  edition of the Encounters of Young International Photography (Niort, France), SMArt Exchange & Residency Programme 2018-2019 (Beirut and Marrakesh), The Summer Academy at Darat-AL Funun (Amman, Jordan). etc.
His work has been published in Les Inrockuptibles, Les Echos, The Eye of Photography Magazine etc.

Ziad Naitaddi lives and works in Salé.

Press
“Les paysages absentés de Ziad Naitaddi” by Olivier Rachet in Diptyk, January 2021