Love in a kit (Tanzania, Zanzibar)

In the shallow waters, this couple reenacts universal romantic imagery by forming a heart with their arms. The staging—amplified by the small table placed in the water, an accessory for an exclusive Instagrammable experience —embodies the shift from travel to photographic performance . In Zanzibar, these scenarios are offered by local operators to attract a clientele looking for images to publish more than moments to experience.

This type of scripted tourist offering , widespread in Nungwi or Kendwa, responds to a logic of globalized experiential tourism . We no longer visit a place, we stage ourselves there , often in a setting designed for social networks. This coded format — standardized gestures, identical accessories, repeated poses — transforms the landscape into an open-air studio.

In the background, barely perceptible, the invisible traditional gestures of Swahili fishermen or artisans remain muted, erased by the dominant visual narrative. This photograph thus creates tension between two worlds: that of local transmission , rooted in the rhythms of the ocean, and that of a globalized imagination where even love is consumed in images.