A woman in Tangiers, Ines Weizman
A woman in Tangiers: Against erasure. Ines Weizman.
Five people are passing through a gate leading to the souk of the Tangier kasbah on a winter’s day in 1935. To the viewer’s far left, a boy walks barefoot. In the middle, two Berber women draped in layers of cloth are wearing large straw hats. One carries a hefty clay vessel on her back; the other, closer to the photographer, shouldering a basket, gazes casually at the camera. Towards the center, a man in a cloak and turban carries an empty basket. These four people seem to be returning from the market. To the right, a woman in European clothes is the only figure who is walking in the opposite direction, with her back to us. The characters appear unrelated, each is in his or her own world. Their layered clothes suggest it’s winter. The short shadows tell us the time is around midday. In the gate’s vaults, straw bags are displayed for sale. Through the gate, one can see market stalls; in one of them, I detect the head of a mannequin. Then the grains get too coarse.
