Merken magazine

LMOSOWER

PERFORMANCES OF THE UNSEEN

Across concerts, streets, monuments, and moments of innocence, this series questions visibility itself: who is watched, who performs, and who disappears from view, passing through the frame without being fully seen. Through public spaces and private moments, LMOSOWER (Khalil Ghlimi) exposes what polished narratives omit:

repression,

marginalization,

emotional exhaustion,

and the human cost of existing

Without being seen.

Take My Hand

Taken during the Gen Z protests in Casablanca, this shot reflects the power imbalance embedded in Moroccan reality. Bodies lie on the ground, beaten and humiliated, all the while authority rises above them, faceless and unnamed. The Makhzen exists as a generational presence: omnipresent yet unseen, operating without identity but deeply embedded in collective consciousness.

Beneath Morocco’s polished image of color and craft lies a heavier inheritance, one shaped by repression, generational trauma, and silence.

Casablanca – Gen Z Protests (27/10)
Iceberg

What defines us most remains submerged. A people reduced to what is visible and consumable, the colors, crafts, and rituals designed for the gaze. But what is beneath the visible lies, a submerged weight of history, pain, and unspoken oppression and generational trauma. Like an iceberg, the most significant part remains unseen, carrying stories that rarely make it to the surface.

Fes– Old medina (2023)
Within Shadows

Dar Dbagha, Fez, a site admired by the Western eyes, yet labor unfolds in neglect. The leather crafted here travels the world, while the workers remain trapped in fumes, paint, and shadows, earning barely enough to survive.

Dar Dbagha Workers, Fez (2023)
Red

Within the chaos of metal concerts and mosh pits, Moroccan youth carve out a space to exist loudly. What appears as noise or aggression becomes a form of catharsis, a physical release of frustration, dissent, and suppressed emotion.

Here, performance is not spectacle but survival. Bodies collide not for entertainment, but to momentarily escape containment, expectation, and silence. This is rebellion without slogans, expression without permission.

Lboulevard Festival, Casablance (2025)
Five acts

Open to many understandings, this image captures acting for an audience. Sealed behind glass, the subject becomes an object of voyeurism, presented for observation, contained, and distanced from contact.

Casablanca (2025)
Behind Bars of Capitalism

Capitalism’s promise of an ideal humanity is gently unsettled, as individuals appear enclosed by unseen bars. What appears polished is carefully contained.

Control, not harmony, holds it together.

Casablanca (2025)
Humanity Seems Perfect

Humanity seems perfect. Yet the longer you remain with it, the more the surface begins to soften. Small imperfections breathe through the frame. Perfection lingers as an appearance, while details quietly gathers in the imperfections left behind.

Casablanca (2025)
Except Ye Be as a Child

Taken in Tangier, a biblical verse stayed with me: “Except ye be as a child again, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” It was quitely carried as I moved through the moment. It settled into the image on its own, shaping its mood and presence, not as something to explain, but as a way of seeing.

Tangier (2025)
At Home

"I was happy when i took this pic, i was with my friends on a trip. I had a sense of wonder and beauty within me. I felt like a kid. Innocent. This pic capture that feeling of returning," said Lmosower.

Tangier (2025)
طوكيو

Suspended, as Time passes anyway, unavailable, unwavering, already gone. Desire stays behind, exposed and motionless, while the world refuses to pause, leaving the body to hold the quiet weight of what it wanted and did not receive.

Casablanca (2025)
Intersection

Where modern and traditional meet without fully merging. The photograph captures a space of transition, neither fixed nor resolved. Here, identity is not inherited or defined, but negotiated. The photograph lingers in that in-between state, where meaning is still forming.

Meknes (2025)
Void

Taken at a concert, this shot brings the idea of performance one more time. Unrestricted for the artists on stage, but in how the roles are assumed, gestures repeated, and presence shaped for others. Over time, this constant acting creates distance between the self and the world, and between the self and itself. Even in a crowd, a quiet sense of solitude remains.

Meknes (2025)

About LMOSOWER

Known as LMOSOWER, Khalil Ghlimi moves fluidly between photography and filmmaking. His work varies across music videos and visual projects deeply rooted in Morocco’s cultural scene, shaped by a long-standing passion for image, rhythm, and alternative expression.

At the core of his practice lies street photography, where LMOSOWER returns again and again to the unscripted, the overlooked, and the unfiltered. His lens resists touristic voyeurism, polished ideals, and mediated fantasy, seeking instead to capture life as it unfolds beneath curated images and polished surfaces. Everyday gestures, moments of pause, and quiet tensions.

As part of a wider artistic movement in Morocco, LMOSOWER is among those opening difficult conversations about power, labor, faith, youth, and visibility. His images do not explain or soften these realities; they remain present, allowing meaning to emerge through observation rather than instruction, inviting reflection, and offering space for what is often pushed to the margins to finally be seen.

LMOSOWER

LMOSOWER

LMOSOWER

LMOSOWER

© 2026 Khalil Ghlimi

All photographs remain the exclusive property of the author. Published by Merken Magazine under a non-exclusive licence and with the author’s permission.

© 2026 Merken Magazine.

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