About

Hanane El Ouardani (b. 1994, The Netherlands) is a Dutch-Moroccan social documentary photographer and part-time art educator based in Amsterdam. She graduated in 2018 from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

Her work explores themes such as identity, social structures, and exoticisation, often rooted in personal experiences and shaped by the clichés and contradictions of a hybrid sense of belonging. Through a subjective documentary approach, she unpacks these layered narratives and shows how individual experiences can speak to broader cultural dynamics.

El Ouardani directs her camera toward places where men are prominently present in public space. While she actively engages with them as subjects, she emphasises: “I find it essential that the female gaze contributes to revealing the role of masculinity in our contemporary world.”

In 2022, Hanane received a Start Grant from the Mondriaan Fund to support her artistic practice.
She has exhibited, given readings, and delivered artist talks at Prospects (Art Rotterdam), Unfair, Belfast Photography Festival, Foto Tallinn, the Unseen Dummy Award, Fotokroniek (Pakhuis de Zwijger), OSCAM, Gemaal op Zuid, and more.