Marrakech colonial shadows

In early 2024 we travelled to Morocco to create a film commisioned by Porsche that explores the tension between tradition and modernity —not through technology, but through form, texture and gesture. What began as a commercial commission evolved into a broader visual essay about craft, architecture and the quiet endurance of cultural heritage.

The project unfolded between Marrakech and its surroundings, where artisans of pottery, horse breeders and local makers became the real protagonists. Their work, defined by repetition and patience, mirrors the rhythm of the land itself —a rhythm that still resists acceleration.

Archive photography, fragments of old travel books and early ethnographic references were essential in shaping the visual grammar of the film. They grounded the narrative in memory, helping to connect contemporary imagery with a lineage of observation that runs through time.

Within the world of Darwin, this project lives as a meditation on the beauty of process —how human craft and landscape inform each other, and how the act of looking can itself become a form of preservation.