Manoël Pénicaud Photographs Morocco’s Shared Sacred Traditions in Bab Doukkala

The habits that connect religious communities are more complicated than the categories used to divide them. Anthropologist and photographer Manoël Pénicaud explores those everyday crossings in Interreligiosités marocaines at Maison Denise Masson, where the exhibition remains on view until November 16.

The photographs examine how Muslims, Jews and Christians in Morocco can share rituals, sacred figures and places, even while belonging to distinct traditions. Pénicaud focuses not on theology or declarations of tolerance, but on lived practice: people asking for blessings, healing or protection, and the ways their journeys occasionally lead them towards the sacred places of others.

The material rests on anthropological fieldwork and avoids pretending that religious coexistence is without tension. The more interesting question is what ordinary behaviour reveals when the boundaries of formal belief appear firmer than those of social life.

The exhibition is produced by the Institut français du Maroc and follows the 2022 Maison Denise Masson presentation Prier dans le lieu de l'Autre. Its intellectual history also connects to the wider Lieux saints partagés project first presented at the Mucem in Marseille in 2015, which examined shared sacred sites around the Mediterranean.

Pénicaud is an anthropologist associated with Rabat's Centre Jacques Berque. Bringing his research photographs into an accessible Marrakech exhibition creates a close encounter between academic fieldwork and the textures of daily religious experience.

The exhibition runs from September 30 to November 16 at Maison Denise Masson, 49 Derb Zemrane, Bab Doukkala, Marrakech. The cultural house's published visiting hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 10:30 a.m.–1 p.m. and 2–6 p.m., with free admission.

The venue's exhibition announcement is the first-hand source for the photographic project, its collaborators and the dates. A separate contemporary exhibition by Youssef Elmekaoui is also on view at the house during the same period.