25 february 2025, Flor Linckens
Sabrina Charehbili: capturing a feeling in images
In ‘Different Corners’, a group exhibition at Galerie Helder in The Hague, you can immerse yourself in the enigmatic work of Sabrina Charehbili until 22 March. In her earlier series "El Último Islote" Charehbili transformed plastic waste into dreamlike compositions — a subtle reflection on our relationship with nature — but in her latest series, the artist focuses on culture. The images reflect an aspect of her bicultural identity: Charehbili has roots in both the Netherlands and Morocco.
For this series, Charehbili travelled to Morocco, photographing figures in vast landscapes. The stark contrasts between light and dark imbues her work with a cinematic quality. Yet, the artist is not primarily concerned with documenting a specific reality but rather with capturing a specific feeling. She plays with visual and symbolic layering, navigating a hybrid space between documentary and fiction. Sometimes a title suggests a narrative, but there is always room for interpretation. Her images capture a mental space where memory and imagination converge.
One of the works in the exhibition, "Dancing Carpets", explores the boundary between two- and three-dimensionality, as if looking at a trompe-l’oeil. Photographed from above, the image shows two figures wrapped in flowing fabrics — or carpets — swirling around their bodies. Two hands, embracing the other figure, reinforce the impression of a duo. Yet, something feels off. Where a face should be beneath the red fabric, a black void gapes. Or is that just a deception? The second head, concealed under blue textile, appears eerily two-dimensional, as if the figures are dissolving into shadows of fabric and light. The carpets evoke associations with domesticity, heritage and nomadic cultures, but the image itself radiates mystery. A diamond-shaped section of the photo is bathed in bright sunlight, while the rest is cast in diagonal shadow — a play of light and dark that further blurs the boundary between presence and disappearance.
In "Stone Game", small hands drop what look like nuts or pebbles, their movement mirrored in sharp silhouettes on the warm, terracotta-hued ground. The tangible and the fleeting merge in a play of light and form, where reality and illusion seamlessly intertwine.
"Hidden Harmony" features a veiled figure on horseback, standing in a shallow body of water, surrounded by what appears to be an oasis. The golden-yellow fabric draping the figure catches the sunlight in an almost sacred way — both concealing and revealing, like a veil between reality and dream. The horse’s exposed white ears, resembling horns, heighten the mythical atmosphere, offering the image a sense of magic as if it exists on the border of two worlds. Does the figure lose itself in nature, or are we witnessing a mystical ritual unfold?
In "Amazigh Girl", we see a woman wearing an ornately decorated red-and-white dress, with a long, translucent lace veil that is being lifted by the wind. She is adorned with jewellery and beads, a contrast with the rough, arid desert landscape that surrounds her. These embellishments suggest a connection to tradition, while her posture — sitting on a low stone wall, one hand subtly extended — radiates introspection. Her veil and averted gaze render her identity elusive — not hidden, but just beyond reach. The title of the image reflects her Amazigh heritage, an echo of the earliest recorded inhabitants of North Africa.
Charehbili’s work has a cinematic quality that seems to resist a singular interpretation. The photographer plays with concealment and revelation, texture and movement, placing human presence in vast landscapes, lending her images a timeless and layered atmosphere. Tradition and modernity coexist, while her work explores identity in a way that is both visually powerful and poetic. Her photographs prompt questions about who we are in relation to our environment — how roots, memories and symbols shape our visibility. Charehbili: “With my work, I want to transform and enrich everyday reality, reveal hidden layers of meaning, emotion and beauty, and invite others to experience the world from a new perspective.”
Sabrina Charehbili was born in the Netherlands in 1992 and is based in Rotterdam. She graduated from the Fotoacademie Amsterdam in 2023, where she received the SO’24 Student Award. Her work has previously been exhibited at Unseen and in the Rietveld Pavilion in Amersfoort.
