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‘In any creative work, be it the artist or the artisan, the creatve person unites with the material they are working with, which symbolises the world outside him/herself. The worker and the artefact become one. The human being becomes one with his creation. ‘ Erich Fromm
The word Poiein in Ancient Greek (ποιεá¿–ν) means making. It is where the word Poetry comes from. Plato had pointed at the connection between craft-making and poetry, calling us to gaze at the rich worlds of form and meaning that come to life when we take raw material from our landscape and create with it. It is possible, when we look at a handcrafted object, to appreciate the emotion and soul life that the maker had infused in it.
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Sefrou is located in the heart of the middle Atlas. Traditionally, a market town located amidst fertile farming lands, it is known for its fruit orchards, cherry festival and the large Jewish community that lived there up until the last century. Sefrou is still home to a large community of local artisans, metal smiths, woodworkers, weavers and button makers. Though the community is still thriving, few are the ones of the young generation who wish to learn these skills.
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Visiting local crafts people in their workshops, we will learn about their work and daily lives as a way to get a sense of the place through the people and their working spaces. An orientation of the city from the inside out hosted by Culture Vultures, will lead us into a deeper relationship with Amazigh women who spin and weave and we will participate in a hands own textile workshop.
We will be introduced to ‘The Loom in Local Rituals’ and how women used the loom as a sacred medium for protection. On Sunday we will make a day trip to a mountain market town in the Middle Atlas where the wool comes from, to meet women who practice unbroken textile traditions in the region.
Alongside these visits our work will consist of listening to the stories that emerge from our activities, as well as engage with traditional stories from around the world to bring into clearer focus the role of craft-making in the life of the Soul. On our last day we will share these stories in a storytelling evening (no previous experience necessary). Daily shamanic practices will help us access ancestral knowledge and seek healing for modern day’s rupture between skill and community, craft and Time.
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Ongoing enquiry into sacred dressmaking & site specific engagement
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Detail of Barbate river neck / hand made felt / subvencionado por la Junta de Andalucia, 2020
Barbate river / hand made felt / subvencionado por la Junta de Andalucia, 2020
Detail of Barbate river neck / hand made felt / subvencionado por la Junta de Andalucia, 2020
Shamanic costumes are a way of making visible that which is intangible, a way of drawing in the spirits into making sanctuary with us. The shamanic costume becomes a 'contact zone', a space for 'corporalising' spirit; a space where we can offer our own body as a sacred location for a momentary communion with the 'no-bodies'.
My ongoing practice and enquiry is in making handmade felt and textile ceremonial costumes. These costumes enfold the person wearing them and unfold a relationship with a non human energy field. I make them as objects which belong to a community that seeks to expand their kinship ties to their environment, in a wide variety of performative and educational settings. These are socially engaged experiments in an ancient shamanic technology.
The shaman's costume itself discloses not only a sacred presence but also cosmic symbols and metaphysic itineraries. Properly studied, it reveals the system of shamanism as clearly as do shamanic myths and techniques.
Mircea Eliade