Keepers of stillness (Morocco, Fez)

In the sandy margins of the Muslim cemetery in Fez, two dogs stand motionless, as if they were one with the landscape. Their pale bodies blend in with the whitewashed tombs, creating an almost painterly scene, bathed in harsh light and silence.

Muslim cemeteries, like this one, are open places, without strict barriers between the world of the dead and the world of the living. They sometimes welcome wild plants and stray animals, and become semi-public spaces for contemplation, rest, or passage , far from the fixed representations of death.

In Morocco, the relationship with dogs is ambivalent : considered impure in certain religious contexts, but tolerated—even respected—when they fulfill a functional role or settle in the interstices of the city. These dogs, left to their own devices, occupy places without social tension , such as cemeteries, where they find shade, calm, and refuge.

Here, they do not disturb. They prolong the silence , in a form of peaceful cohabitation between the living and the forgotten.