2020 May 16

Landscape observations: Morocco

Morocco has endured thousands of years of successive waves of settlers, changing traditions and shifting cultures. For this reason, todays Moroccan culture is largely mixed, with Arabian, Islamic, Berber and European signatures.

This is an excerpt. Find the whole article inside our third issue.

Photography and Words Bobby Mills for This Orient, Vol. 3

The landscape is the prevailing feature that has remained constant, a witness that has stood still throughout a history in constant flux. In a similar way to its shifting cultures Morocco’s landscape has many faces, from the lunar plains of the Anti Atlas Mountains to the wind-smoothed sand dunes at the western edge of the Sahara Desert. To study its contours on a map or to drive through its plains at a gentle pace is like studying the wrinkles on a face, each landscape telling a different and beautiful story.

These landscapes are also a home. People give perspective to the landscape and subtly display the relationship between culture and nature

A valley ringed by immeasurable mountains is given history and scale by a small village beneath its peaks or an open plain is given time and space by a settlement or Kasbah.
As I walked one evening in the Anti Atlas Mountains I reflected on how uninhabitable this landscape felt. It was dry and rocky with only small woody leafless trees growing here and there. I couldn’t tell if the hills in front of me were one hundred or thousand meters high, or if they were a mile ahead or ten. I felt very alone.

 

Find the whole article inside Vol.3 of This Orient “The Greater Middle East”. Find the issue here in our store.