Every year since 2020, when the DELTA/KYOTOGRAPHIE Permanent Space first opened in Demachi Masugata Shopping Arcade, KYOTOGRAPHIE has invited a young African contemporary artist to be an artist-in-residence, directly connecting Kyoto’s local shopping district with diverse Africa. In 2024, KYOTOGRAPHIE invited Moroccan photographer Yassine Alaoui Ismaili, known as Yoriyas.

Yoriyas spent a few weeks here in the Demachi Masugata shopping area in November 2023. This was his first visit to Japan, but he has deep ties to the country, having watched a lot of Japanese anime when he was a child, spent countless hours playing the character Yuri in the game The King of Fighters as a teenager, and collaborated with a dance group in Kansai as a breakdancer and choreographer. He says that his stay in Japan has been a time for him to reflect on his childhood and adolescence.

During his stay in Kyoto, Yoriyas, who doesn’t speak Japanese, communicates through body language, photographing people and scenery around the Kamogawa River, young people on the streets, and shoppers in Demachi Masugata Shopping Arcade. For Yoriyas, who used to express himself physically as a dancer, his encounters with maiko and geiko were especially interesting. He was drawn to way they move and carry themselves, and he photographed them while moving along with them, creating together a work of impromptu physical expression.

Yoriyas always uses his physicality when taking photographs, and in Kyoto he experimented with different angles while shooting. He says, “I hope that people looking at my photos will not just look at them straight on, but will move around and dance with them.”

The title ‘KIF KIF KYOTO’ means ‘Morocco and Kyoto are the same.’ Yoriyas feels that Japan and Morocco have much in common, and he captured with his camera similarities between Kyoto and Morocco in colors, living environment, family ties, cultural richness, and respect for traditional craftspersons. Photographs he took in Kyoto and Morocco will be displayed in pairs, bringing a new breeze into the shopping arcade.