Upon the release of a new book, we like to ask our authors to share their thoughts on the how and why of their work. In Rock the Kasbah Bibiana Cristina takes you on a soulful journey through 20 of Morocco's most soulful stays, letting the pages in between unfold like a cinematic road movie.
Hi Bibiana! Can you please start by sharing how this project came your way, or how your life’s journey led you to this book?
"The seed of Rock the Kasbah was born from a personal need. For years, I had travelled and photographed within commissions, working in response to defined frameworks. At a certain point, I felt the urge to move without one: to travel without external expectations, to observe slowly, and to allow the narrative to emerge from lived experience.
In 2024, I travelled to Marrakesh to develop a personal body of work conceived as a potential artist’s book. That process clarified the way I approached territory, from a more intimate and authorial perspective. When, in 2025, Luster invited me to expand that gaze across the entire country, what had begun as an exploration of a single city unfolded into a broader narrative about territory, lived experience, and a consciously selected constellation of spaces that became integral to the journey.
Travelling alone across Morocco for thirty days, weaving together images and words into a first-person narrative was the natural consequence of choosing my intuition. From that decision, Rock the Kasbah took shape, authored from within the journey itself."
How, when, and why did you lose your heart to Morocco?
"I didn’t fall in love with Morocco in a romantic way. I felt recognised by it. I am drawn to beauty in chaos: to contrast, to imperfection, to places where tension exists naturally. Morocco holds all of that at once: peace and noise, silence and intensity, austerity and ornament. Its beauty is not polished or controlled; it is everywhere. And no matter how many times I return, it keeps pulling my gaze."
Which moment and/or meeting during your journey has stayed with you the most?
"It wasn’t a single moment, but an accumulation of almost invisible ones: Watching the landscape shift through the windshield as the hours passed. Pink sunsets dissolving into dusk. The echo of the call to prayer. The souk at first light, just as it begins to stir. The wind moving through the palm groves in Skoura. Long stretches of driving alone through the Atlas, in complete silence. Those were the moments that shaped the tone of the book — the in-between."
Would you like to return to Morocco again?
"Always. But not to repeat the same itinerary. Morocco holds more than one narrative. It marked me in ways that go beyond the pages of the book, and I know I will return to encounter it differently. A territory is never static, and neither is the gaze that observes it."
What feeling or message do you hope your readers take away from your book?
"I hope readers close the book with the courage to get in the car — literally or metaphorically — and trust the road ahead. To choose movement. To allow themselves to travel slowly, or even alone. To follow intuition rather than wait for certainty, and to notice what is so often overlooked along the way. Because the most transformative journeys rarely begin when everything feels safe: they begin in that moment of doubt just before we move."
Do you already have dreams or plans for a next travel and photography project?
"To me, Rock the Kasbah feels like the beginning of a wider journey. I am drawn to exploring territory not only through where we stay, but through how we live, through everyday rituals where culture becomes visible. Africa awakens something instinctive in me, something visceral and almost impossible to articulate; Latin America calls me back to my roots; and India remains a place that marked me profoundly. Each, in different ways, inspires me and invites a deeper conversation. Where that dialogue will take me next, I don’t yet know. What I do know is that I am interested in immersive narratives, where a place is not simply visited, but truly inhabited."
Check out the book
