Yoriyas

Yassine Alaoui Ismaili (ياسين العلوي الإسماعيلي), known as Yoriyas, is a Moroccan photographer and breakdancer based in Casablanca, Morocco. As a photographer, Yoriyas specializes in street photography.

He started with photography in 2007, when his dance crew, Lhiba Kingzoo, was invited to perform in Salzburg, Austria. He bought a simple camera from a flea market to share photos of the trip with family.

Photography projects

From the Street to the Olympics

This project chronicles the journey of breakdancing in several countries, including Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. It features moments intimate to the breakdance culture and community not often seen by the outside world.

Casablanca Not The Movie

Casablanca Not The Movie presents images of life in Casablanca, Morocco's economic capital and largest city. These images counter Orientalist images of the city based on the 1942 American film Casablanca.

Morocco Now

Sourtna

In 2020, Yoriyas organized Sourtna (صورتنا our image), the inaugural exhibition at the Moroccan National Photography Museum in Rabat. This exhibition features Morocco's photographers "of today and tomorrow."

In a statement, Yoriyas said, "I'm convinced that visual development plays a part in the socio-economic development of a country. For me, this here means that Morocco is capable of representing itself in images, that we are capable of producing images, of defending them, of sharing them, of showing them and of seeing them."