Photographer focuses on finding the whimsical

Synesthesia — a psychological condition associated with sounds producing the sensation of colours and shapes — is supposed to affect many of the world’s musical savants.

Interdisciplinary Winnipeg artist Ayoub Moustarzak seems to have this condition in inverse.

“This song was a little backwards. I started with visuals,” he says of his debut single, Breaks Apart, a theatrical ballad featuring pianist Dallas Nedotiafko, released in August.

“(My music) is more of a visual storytelling experience that comes with a song.”

This order of priority feels natural for one of Winnipeg’s more distinctive photographers, who just launched his first official project under the name Ayozak.

The 25-year-old Moroccan Canadian is responsible for some of the most striking band photos to come out of Winnipeg in recent years. As well as creating art photography, he’s worked with the likes of Bros. Landreth, Ami Cheon and Sandman.

It’s hard to know what to expect when Moustarzak shares another photos series, except that you won’t see any self-serious musicians or newlyweds leaning against industrial surfaces in the Exchange District. Moustarzak’s work could be called many things, but rarely cliched.

“One of my peak creative moments was literally Saran-Wrapping somebody,” he says with a laugh.

“I often get an artist to describe to me the place they’re being transported to, and oftentimes it is a fictional place. And we always try to bring that fictional place to life visually. There are countless hours, months, days, weeks, of just what I call dreaming that goes into things.”

Despite claiming to have little technical skill, Moustarzak’s been carrying around a camera — often clandestinely — since he was a teenager.

“I had found a camera in my dad’s closet that I didn’t know existed, and it was one of those big, fancy cameras,” says Moustarzak, whose father is a fashion photographer. “So, what I did was I just took the camera without telling him, and I started to just take photos of everything and anything.”

Today, Moustarzak works both as a photographer and a designer. He graduated with a diploma in graphic design and interactive media from Toronto Film School in December, and intends to pursue a bachelor of creative arts beginning in January.

While he’s not taking on any more band clients as a photographer, as a designer he continues to work with local businesses with a flair for the strange and whimsical.

“They are very much open to new ideas and taking the leap and stepping into that weird grey zone of design where it kind of walks the line of, ‘Is this good design or — is this (crap)?’”

Every generation’s artists seem to have their own way of enjoying and exploring camp and kitsch, and for many gen Zs and millennials, this is about an ironic nostalgia for early Internet culture.

A Y2K esthetic is obvious in some of Moustarzak’s designs, while his music channels the power ballads of yesteryear. But in other ways Moustarzak sees himself as rebelling against the tendencies towards self-consciousness and irony he detects in gen Z art.

“You need to stand 10 toes deep in your cringe. Ayozak is a character. He’s very different from me. He’s theatrical. He likes to dance, he likes to weird people out. Art creates opinions. It starts conversations. If you’re doing that, you know you’re doing something right,” he says.

Moustarzak says his complicated relationship to social media and the internet, where most of his art first reaches an audience, also reflects his frustrations with Winnipeg.

“I can see the lineups of (local) shows, and it’s no lie to say that the majority of them are individuals of European descent. It’s really unsettling and uncomfortable, and that is why I personally think a lot of people of colour that are artists tend to steer towards the digital realm in Winnipeg,” he says.

Moustarzak is still working carefully on building his eventual live show, which he says will blend musical and visual storytelling. He says he’s also connecting with other likeminded musicians of colour to forge more inclusive spaces — and envision what Winnipeg music could become.

“I think it’s a scene that doesn’t exist yet,” he says.

“But you either make room at the table or I build my own table, and invite my own guests, right?”

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca