ZAAR — Body, trance, and Mediterranean memory
Research and Creation

The ZĀR project is part of a long-term research project on the body, trance, and collective memory at the crossroads of the cultures of Southern Europe and North Africa, united by the Mediterranean Sea.

Documenting a female trance ritual, it features an Egyptian Zar group, the Mazaher group, and its singer, Madeha. These previously unpublished images allow me to revisit the gestures, bodies, and spaces of the ritual, confronting them with a reflection on the Mediterranean origins of trance and its contemporary resonances.

The Zār ritual in Egypt is an ancestral ceremony of possession and liberation practiced mainly by and for women. This ritual, which is musical, physical, and therapeutic, allowed me to explore how the body becomes a space for memory, healing, and resistance. 

This research is rooted in a long companionship with collective ritual practices, observed particularly in Cairo, but also in other cultural contexts encountered when I was younger, where the relationship between body, music, and spirituality was already shaping my artistic vision. 
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