Moroccan visual artist Hicham Benohoud has won the prestigious PhotoBook of the Year award at Paris Photo 2025, the world's largest photography fair, for his book The Classroom, published by Loose Joints. The award, often described as «the Oscars of photography books», was announced during the fair's 28th edition. The Classroom gathers a remarkable series of black-and-white images Benohoud created between 1994 and 2002, when he was an art teacher in a Marrakech secondary school. His own students served as models, carefully staged in surreal, meticulously composed scenes he prepared in advance to break the monotony of repetitive classroom hours. «I took photos because I was bored in class… I wanted to keep myself busy», he told RFI, noting that the work only later revealed its artistic depth. Benohoud, 57, a graduate of the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, left full creative control of the book's editing and layout to the publisher, offering more than 2,000 negatives. He dedicated the award to the late Christian Caujolle, who organized his first international exhibition of The Classroom in 2001. The prize recognizes not only the book's artistic quality but also its powerful reflections on Moroccan society. «Through these photos, I talk about Morocco as I see it», Benohoud said. In The Classroom, he criticizes the failure of the educational system to provide true freedom for youth.
