For the first time, an exhibition of the photographer Mous Lamrabat is being hosted in France. The full color photos they are presented to him in the art room Le Château d’Eau of Toulouse.

Lamrabat describes himself as a “citizen of the world”: he was born in Morocco and grew up and studied in Ghent, Belgium in a very traditional environment. His main source of inspiration was music and hip hop. “Everything was extraordinary. At that time, labels weren’t interested in rappers.

Rappers had to create their own style, which was even more fashionable. It was like they were creating fashion out of nothing,” he confesses.

After watching the documentary “28 millimeters: Portrait of a Generation” of the artist JR, Lamrabat decided to abandon his design studies and take up photography. “I said to myself ‘tomorrow I’m going to the market to buy a camera.’ It was a Nikon F99, it cost about 40 euros. It was a film camera, but I couldn’t afford a digital one,” he says.

Lamrabat is a self-taught photographer, thanks to the Internet. Although he did not study photography, he always had a love for fashion and clothes. True to his background, he appropriates conventions to undermine them.

“People look for meaning in my photos. The message is love, always love,” he emphasizes.

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Christian Caujolle, the artistic director of Le Château d’Eau, describes his work Mous Lamrabat as “seriously playful, playfully serious” and visiting the Instagram account (@mouslamrabat) of the photographer justifies him. The exhibition ends on August 27.

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