Tattooing as Subversive Archive: Safaa Mazirh's Reclamation of Tattoos in Postcolonial Morocco

This chapter concentrates on the photographs of Moroccan artist Safaa Mazirh and her 2017 series “Amazigh.” In this series of 13 black and white photographs, Mazirh uses a multiple exposure technique in the camera to place North African tattoo designs over her nude or semi-nude body. She creates a multi-layered palimpsest that critiques colonial-era efforts to record tattooed women as ethnographic objects. The practice of tattooing has largely faded from fashion in Morocco, as it is understood to be counter to Islam. Mazirh sees tattoo symbols as an expression of Amazigh identity that should not be forgotten. Mazirh's method of superimposing tattoo symbols over her own body contributes to the subversive nature of her photographic project that reclaims the past and also archives its destruction.

Keywords: Amazigh arts ; Berber arts ; Francesca Woodman ; Imazighen ; Morocco ; North African photography ; photographic palimpsest ; prohibition of tattooing in Morocco ; tattoos ; The Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture ; Women's agency in North Africa