"L’esprit du geste", curated by Sonia Recasens

As the Moroccan artist Mohamed Chabâa once asserted, “Our traditions are revolutionary, our traditions are futurist”. Between 1962 and 1974, this historic figure of the Casablanca School advocated the promotion of age-old traditions and vernacular know-how. In keeping with the dynamism of the post-independence period that saw the breaking down of barriers between art and craft and the removal of hierarchical distinctions, this exhibition, L’esprit du geste (The Spirit of the Gesture) sets out to deconstruct an ethnocentric, patriarchal view of traditional practices.

Taking as its starting point such notions as transmission, hybridity, traditional know-how, the heritage handed down from the men and women of the past, rituals and gestures, the exhibition finds inspiration in my childhood memories, the summers spent with my family in the cities and countryside of Morrocco. I remember watching the agile hands of my aunts and great aunts fashioning the trousseau of a bride-to-be; massaging and scrubbing bodies; kneading dough; washing and folding linen and preparing henna paste. Wrinkled and tattooed hands working to take care of homes and the bodies of the people living there, carrying out their daily rituals in the privacy of the domestic space, graceful hands conveying love and transmitting know-how. Care, poetry, tenderness and beauty are all rooted in my memories. They compose a language that is both visual and corporal, a language whose aesthetic force is universal and to which L’esprit du geste pays homage.

I am very grateful to the seventeen international artists who accepted my invitation. Their practices criss-cross the genres of art, craft and domestic traditions to create works that highlight the incredible inventiveness of the world of manual crafts, which has always been denigrated and long remained unseen. And yet, this quest for the “spirit of the gesture” is not an attempt to rigidly reproduce and resist change, but rather an exhilarating interpretation that is full of life, one which provides an opportunity for an artistic and aesthetic hybridisation that could be considered a tribute to the syncretic nature of Islamic culture.

Showcasing affinities and examples of solidarity between Persian, Indian, Ottoman, Arab and Berber cultures, not forgetting those of Central Asia, the exhibition presents works that explore techniques, motifs, materials and stories that originate in ancient traditions that have been passed down across the centuries and over the course of successive population movements.

Painting, installation art, sculpture, dance, tapestry and architecture mingle, reformulating an artistic language that forges connections that cross borders as if inviting us to open ourselves to the world and create a new community.

Sonia Recasens – curator.

M’Barek Bouhchichi

Muqarnas, 2021

Painted wood and resin, 34 x 51 x 26.5 cm

In Muqarnas, M’Barek Bouhchichi gives a modern take on an emblematic motif of Islamic architecture, laying bare the Muqarnas*, or honeycomb vaulting, which first appeared in Iraq and Iran between the 9^th and 10^th centuries. Combining both structural and ornamental functions, this architectural feature went on to spread as far as Andalusia. The work on show is made up of four muqarnas: an original made from painted wood; a second period muqarnas restored by the artist using traditional colours; a third made of wood but without pigments; and a fourth made of resin. M’Barek Bouhchichi employed this repetitive process to examine the object in close detail, as if to highlight the complex nature of the invisible engineering behind the motif. By recreating the gestures of craftsmen, M’Barek Bouhchichi is also acting to prevent their disappearance and/or their industrialisation and inviting us to reflect upon the preservation and transformation of cultural heritage.

* Muqarnas: an architectural element initially designed to distribute the weight of vaults and to hide the transition between a square base and a dome.

Work produced with the support of the Villa du Parc

Salima Naji 

Matbouaates, empreintes, ce qu’il reste, 2024

In situ installation, bamboo and earth

Doctor of Anthropology and architect Salima Naji has been promoting an architecture of the common good for some twenty years. Defending an innovative approach based on collaboration and the respect of people and the environment, she prefers to use local materials in her projects: earth, stone, rammed earth and palm fibre etc. Drawing inspiration from the history and practice of collective granaries, Salima Naji observes and collects gestures, rituals, materials and beliefs to develop renovation and construction projects that strive to preserve age-old expertise. Designed especially for the exhibition, this earth and bamboo installation still bears the traces of the hands that fashioned it, preserving the marks left by the spirit of the gesture. This previously unseen organic and sensual work draws spectators into a physical experience that allows them to fully appreciate the visual and physically enveloping properties of raw earth.

Work produced with the support of the ICI

With the participation of Valérie and Philippe Serignan

Farah Khelil

éclat (series) : #3, 2023 – #5, 2023 – #8, 2024

Paint on glazed tiles, 15 x 15 cm, 30 x 30 cm, 100 x 100 x 1.6 cm

Témoin oculaire (series) : Ocre, 2023 – Bleu, 2023

Mixed media drawing, embossed glass, frame, 21 x 29.7 cm

Feuillage #1, 2023

Acrylic on canvas and wood, document, postcard, 29 x 21 cm

Pan de mur #1, 2023

Acrylic on canvas and battens, 23 x 120 cm

Paysage, 2024

Acrylic on 11 postcards of Tunisia, 10 x 15 cm

An artist and iconographer, Farah Khelil collects material and objects including books and postcards, as well as glazed tiles that she breaks into fragments, before analysing and obliterating them. In Éclat, Farah Khelil covered traditional Tunisian tiles in white paint. She then cut slivers out of the layer of paint – that evokes the whitewashed walls of Sidi Bou Saïd where she grew up – and draws figures taken from postcards of Tunisia. Like fragments of a fantastic, exotised landscape, the slivers spread across the surface of the installation form an imaginary map. Drawing both from her own life and theoretical thinking, from mainstream culture and the history of art, Farah Khelil questions the dominant visual culture and how it affects our perception of reality, creating a visual and conceptual body of work in which the deconstruction of images takes centre stage.

Témoin oculaire, series – Courtesy Galerie Lilia Ben Salah

Eclat #8 & Paysage – Works produced with the support of the ICI

Amina Agueznay

Draâ x Draâ, 2024

9 pieces of woven wool and cotton, approx. 50 x 50 cm and colour video (9 min 26 sec).

For around fifteen years, architect turned artist Amina Agueznay has been running workshops across Morocco aimed at fostering innovation amongst the country’s many master artisans. In so doing, she has, in an almost anthropological approach, collected gestures, techniques, motifs and narratives that feed her own practice. As she explains: “My studio is in the field; the process is more important to me than the finished product”.  It is this creative process rooted in human experience, interaction, sharing, collaboration and dialogue that can be discovered in the video and textile installation Draâ x Draâ*, which is the fruit of a long-running conversation with Zahra El Kaddouri, a master weaver from the region of Tiflet. Using different exercises, Amina Agueznay encouraged the craftswoman to become aware of her creative force and break free from the geometrical rigor of traditional diamond-shaped motifs, or menchar as they are called in Moroccan Arabic.

* In the Moroccan dialect, the term “Draâ” means a “cubit”, an ancient measure of length based on the length of the forearm and corresponding to about 50 cm.

Amina Agueznay

Portal #2 VARIATION, 2022

Woven wool, cotton and natural palm tree bark, 120 x 100 x 10 cm

Amina Agueznay was invited to Tissekmoudine, a ksar (fortified village) in the south of Morocco, by architect and anthropologist Salima Naji. It was there that she met a group of maalmates (female rug weavers) with whom she worked on the woven paintings that comprise her series Portal. Inspired by the symbols engraved on the doors of the ksar, these works blur the boundaries between painting, sculpture, tapestry and architecture. The diamond-shape motif usually seen on traditional Moroccan rugs is here reproduced on undyed wool canvas using thread made from palm husks collected in a nearby oasis. As Amina Agueznay explains: “My works are made up of connections and ramifications. They portray the potential that arises when people come together around a common project, the value of community and the network of social connections. Above all, my message is about humanity and the invisible links formed by exchange, learning and transmission. It is these links that trace the web of human relations”.

Mohamed Amine Hamouda 

Jardin oasien, 2024

Animal and plant fibre, 150 x 340 cm

Wool, palm fibre, halfa, jute, rushes and arjun are just some of the rather unusual natural materials that define a visual vocabulary that informs the shapes, textures and colours of Mohamed Amine Hamouda’s monumental works. His experimental creative process explores the natural environment of Gabès, the city in the south of Tunisia where he lives and works. An artist, artisan, botanist and alchemist, Mohamed Amine Hamouda investigates and documents the visual possibilities afforded by unloved plant materials and those threatened with extinction as a result of industrial activity and climate change. He uses this body of work to highlight the rich biodiversity of the endangered oasis ecosystem, while bringing age-old traditional weaving techniques up to date. In a workshop that looks more like a laboratory, he cuts, washes, cooks, dries and grinds waste materials before revealing their sublime beauty in works such as Jardin oasien.

Courtesy A. Gorgi Gallery

Work produced with the support of the ICI

Selma and Sofiane Ouissi

Laaroussa, 2013

Video (50 min) 

Brother and sister Sofiane and Selma Ouissi are choreographers, dancers, performers and artistic directors who have been creating a cross-disciplinary body of work for some fifteen years. Their work is grounded in a human-centered creative process made up of observation, sharing and collaboration. Laaroussa is the perfect example. This video, in which the two artists pay tribute to the ancestral know-how that has been handed down from one generation of women to the next, is the result of a two-year residency among a community of women potters in the region of Sejnane in Tunisia. Finding inspiration in the energy and postures of these bodies at work, they collected the potters’ gestures, using them to compose an original chorography, a gestural alphabet mimicking the movements of the craftswomen’s hands. This ballet of gestures performed against the backdrop of the landscape of Sejnane is accompanied by the sound of the women at work, wielding a pickaxe to obtain their raw materials, wetting their hands before kneading the clay, shaping the pottery and preparing the fire to heat the kiln.

Sara Ouhaddou  

Composition graphique (series) : Sharjah, 2017–2023 – Ain Kerma, 2018–2023

Raw steel frame, cotton paper print pasted onto aluminium, 40 x 40 cm

Portrait d’artisan.e (series) : Fouzia, 2022–2024 – Untitled, 2024 – Untitled, 2024

Walnut frame, cotton paper print pasted onto aluminium, 70 x 50 cm

Documentation (series) : Wrida, 2023–2024 – Mbarka #2, 2023–2024 – Salon, 2023–2024 – Cimetière, 2021–2023

Poster size photographic print 70 x 90 cm

Photos personnelles (series) : Fadma #1, 2017–2023 – Fadma #2, 2014–2023

Steel frame, glass, 15 x 10 cm

At the crossroads of design and the visual arts, the multifaceted body of work of Sara Ouhaddou forges emotional connections between Moroccan traditional arts and the protocols of contemporary art. Her creative process, based on long-term collaborations with marginalized communities of craftsmen and women, is rooted in social, historical, political and economic perspectives. Devised as tools to facilitate emancipation, the artist’s works are the fruit of moments of affinity that lead to the sharing of gestures, know-how and personal stories. The exhibited photos were taken over the years during her various collaborations in Morocco and Tunisia. With these images that immerse us in the private world of workshops and the creative environment, Sara Ouhaddou shares with the spectator the visual, human and emotional experiences that inspired the creation of a body of work whose multiple means of expression have given rise to a universal language.

Sara Ouhaddou 

Siniya d’El Aaroussa 2 (le plateau de la fiancée 2), 2024

Blown glass, 32 x 32 cm

For Siniya d’El Aaroussa 2, Sara Ouhaddou took a whole new look at forms, materials and colours and imagined a precious installation that evokes ancient ruins. These whimsical objects produced in the workshops of the Cirva in Marseille are a poetic nod to popular customs. One example is this fiancée’s tray, which is called a Siniya d’El Aaroussa in Moroccan Arabic (Darija). It is composed, amongst other items, of a vial of orange blossom water to protect against the evil eye and a henna bowl. Sara Ouhaddou’s investigative approach is both artistic and archaeological, as she also explores the way blown glass objects are made in Morocco. Given that artefacts made using this technique are rarely seen in the country’s museum collections, she has created a fictitious library of forms inspired by everyday objects with the aim of striking up a conversation with scientists, curators and artisans and thereby encouraging the reintroduction of this traditional know-how to her native country.

Courtesy Galerie Polaris

Nil Yalter

Les collages de Topak Ev, 1973

Graphite, crayons and printed papers collaged on cardboard, 60 x 80 cm 

At the crossroads of art and ethnography, Les collages de Topak Ev bring together Nil Yalter’s interests in feminist issues, popular beliefs and the living conditions of socially marginalized communities, such as the Turkish nomads here. Inspired by their way of life, Nil Yalter recreated a modern-day version of a Topak Ev, the typical circular tent traditionally made by the bride-to-be, who also decorates the interior. In parallel, Nil Yalter produced wall panels comprising drawings, texts and photocopies of photos listing the materials (ewe’s wool, sheepskin and felt etc) used to make the yurt. These panels recount the habits and customs of nomadic peoples, for example how they pack up their tea service before setting out on a journey, or the symbolism behind the felt motifs that decorate each tent, such as the ram’s head-inspired altai motif that is widespread among the nomads of Central Asia.

Courtesy Collection 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine

Mythia Kolesar-Dewasne  

Transe humance, 1973

Video (23 min 28 sec)

Inspired by the feminist spirit that bubbled through the arts scene in the years after 1968, Mythia Kolesar-Dewasne took up a camera and made a series of experimental films that included Transe humance. In 1971, her interest in the creative lives of women artists led her to accompany Nil Yalter to Niğde on the Central Anatolian steppe, where the latter was going to work with the Bektik nomadic community. Mythia Kolesar-Dewasne filmed Nil Yalter’s creative process and how she found inspiration in her surroundings. We see Nil Yalter stepping out from behind sheepskins, touching wool, wandering around a tent, running her hand across floor mats and adjusting strips of felt. In what is part performance and part rite of initiation, Nil Yalter carries out a myriad of gestures that highlight the cosmogonic and intrinsically feminine aspects of Topak Ev. Filmed in Super-8, Mythia Kolesar-Dewasne’s Transe humance is a portrait of an artist, a video performance and an ethnographic document. This unidentified filmic object was screened as part of the ARC exhibition cycle at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris in 1973.

Courtesy Gérard Galby

Nazilya Nagimova 

Metamorphosis (series) : Metamorphosis, 2023 – Our ways will never cross, 2023 – Four heavens, 2023 – Two moons, 2022

Felt, 93 x 93 cm, 83 x 83 cm, 98 x 100 cm, 82 x 111 cm

The Prayer, 2024

Felt, 150 x 85 cm

After training as a painter, Nazilya Nagimova returned to her practice of felting in 2017, a traditional technique she first learned from her grandparents. Nazilya Nagimova is fascinated by the visual characteristics of felt – a material that has been an integral part of the life of the nomadic peoples of Central Asia since prehistoric times – and uses this medium to explore the themes of memory, identity and spirituality. The Prayer and the works that comprise her series Metamorphosis draw inspiration from a memory of her aunt covered from head to toe by a cloud of butterflies while reciting a prayer on the tomb of her ancestors. Her aunt explained that the butterflies were in fact the souls of the departed. This experience led Nazilya Nagimova to see prayer as a radiant, multi-dimensional practice. With these powerfully poetic works, the artist is inviting us to ask: “What is prayer? To what worlds and times does it connect us? How can prayer allow us to get back in touch with the purity and sincerity of childhood and thereby attain the lightness of a butterfly?

Hoda Afshar

Speak the Wind, 2022

Video (18 min)

In her video Speak the Wind, Hoda Afshar explores the myths and beliefs that haunt the landscapes of the islands in the Strait of Hormuz. Hoda Afshar notably focuses on the common belief that the islands’ winds are harmful, capable of possessing people and causing illness. A ritual comprising music, singing, dancing and incense intercedes with the winds to convince them to move on. These islands that lie to the south-west of Iran between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman have seen the passage of boats following the Silk Road or transporting the victims of the Arab slave trade. The syncretic nature of this ritual is therefore the result of centuries of commerce. It bears witness to the existence of a cultural melting pot where certain convictions may have been brought to Iran from East Africa. The strange nature of this hybrid ritual resonates with the islands’ surreal landscapes composed of valleys and mountains sculpted and shaped by the wind over millennia.

Courtesy Milani Gallery, Meeanjin, Brisbane

Dilyara Kaipova

Paxta, 2022

Paxta “еги” – Huile de coton, 2022

Cotton, silk, 123 x 190 cm

After working in the world of theatre, for the last ten years or so Dilyara Kaipova has been exploring the traditional textile techniques of Uzbekistan, a practice that allows her to examine the history and culture of her country. Working closely with craftswomen from the region of Marguilan, Dilyara Kaipova reinterprets from a modern viewpoint the ancient patterns and techniques of handwoven silk and cotton abra fabrics. In the caftans presented in the exhibition, the artist employs a cotton boll motif (paxta means cotton in Uzbek) reminiscent of Soviet propaganda posters. Generated using a ternary numerical system developed by artist cryptographer duo NoolOdin, the word paxta appears as a pattern of white motifs that surprisingly evoke Kufic script, a form of calligraphyused to decorate the tiles of mosques and madrassas (schools) in Uzbekistan, thereby making a connection between age-old traditional know-how and new means of transmission.

Courtesy Aspan Gallery

Rada Akbar

Infinite Power n°4, n°5, n°6, 2024

Paint on cement or cut-out paper, 90 x 60 cm

With her series Infinite Power, artist Rada Akbar aims to put an end to several prejudices. Its works pay tribute to the cultural heritage of Afghanistan and honour the power, struggles and aspirations of Afghan women, both for freedom and the right to create. Deploying irony, Rada Akbar forcefully revisits the iconography of famous Persian miniatures featuring female characters, such as this woman reading a book taken from a miniature from the court of Shah Ismail (1501-1524) that she has crowned with a phoenix’s head to signify resilience. These hybrid works mix a historical aesthetic with contemporary elements taken from popular western culture such as Captain America’s shield. Rada Akbar has chosen the carpet as a means of expression. Not only is the latter an important cultural symbol in Afghanistan, but it also bears witness to the role of women in the preservation of an age-old traditional expertise that has become, since the return of the Taliban in 2021, one of the few areas where they are still free to express themselves.

Nadira Husain

Somewhere between Love & Fighting (Détour), 2024

Gouache, acrylic and sequins on canvas, 62 x 49 cm

Somewhere between Love & Fighting (Elephant), 2024

Acrylic on canvas, watercolour, mirror on canvas and sewn textile, 62 x 49 cm

Butt, 2020

Hand painted and hand glazed ceramic, 39 x 29 x 29 cm

The Haunted Museum (series) : Exit Procession Street, 2024 – Hooka, 2024 – Souplesse, 2024

Acrylic on canvas, watercolour, mirror on canvas and sewn textile, 62 x 49 cm

The multifaceted, polyphonic body of work of Nadira Husain combines a wide diversity of cultural references that are treated without any hierarchy. Dense and hybrid both in substance and in form, her pictorial works set themselves free from a central theme, which is replaced instead by superposed figures and layers of motifs repeated over and over until the canvas is saturated. Somewhere Between Love & Fighting is an ideal example: a veritable optical journey, the series draws inspiration from the syncretism of Mughal miniatures such as those in the Akbar Hamzamana (1557), an illustrated manuscript that combines characteristics of Indian painting and a Persian approach composition to express the frictions between two cultures. Different traditions, cultures, techniques and histories come face to face, giving rise to a polymorphous reality made up of multiple identities in constant metamorphosis as, for example, in Haunted Museum.

Butt – Courtesy PSM et Mariane Ibrahim

Series Somewhere between Love & Fighting & The Haunted Museum – Courtesy PSM

Samta Benyahia

Un certain regard. La mère et la silencieuse transmission, 2024

In situ installation

For around thirty years, the mashrabiya has been the main motif to feature in the work of Samta Benyahia. It appears here on the windows and walls of the ICI where it forms an original and immersive installation. Samta Benyahia – who has always had a passion for Berber symbols and the patterns of Islamic art – used a black and white portrait photo of her mother from which she extracted the lattice-like pattern decorating her dress. Drawn, reproduced, enlarged and presented across a wide variety of mediums, this blue criss-crossing motif, called “Fatima” in the Andalusian-Arab context, pays tribute to Algerian women and the know-how they preserve and transmit in the privacy of the domestic space. Preferring to work in situ, Samta Benyahia adapts the mash Rabiya to the spaces where she is working. With its play of shadow and light and transparent effects, the mashrabiya – a latticework partition traditionally used for keeping women out of sight – developed by Samta Benyahia invites the viewer to reflect upon the place of women and how we see them.

Work produced with the support of the ICI

Maha Yammine

Une oie, un rossignol, une cigogne, une grue et un faucon, 2024

Video (10 min 47 sec)

Wood, leather, fabric

Maha Yammine not only has a fertile imagination she is also a great listener, a capacity that helps her build up the collection of personal stories that provide her raw material. Focusing on apparently insignificant details, Maha Yammine produces poetic and profoundly human works of art that contribute to developing a collective narrative. Like an archaeologist excavating the human memory, she reactivates individual memories using creative protocols that superpose political, social, cultural and historical aspects. Invited by the ICI as artist-in residence in the Goutte d’Or neighbourhood of Paris, Maha Yammine met the craftsmen and women who form the La Fabrique de la Goutte d’Or cooperative. During their discussions, she gathered anecdotes that inspired a puppet show whose story told of initiation and learning a trade. Maha Yammine’s modest creative process rooted in a participative approach calls upon memory to bring a touch of magic to history, while evoking childhood thereby tickling both our visual and emotional memories.

Work produced with the support of the ICI

With the participation of Amadou Barry, Diangana Dijitte, Cheikh Oumar Djim, Luc Dognin, Yolande Loboko, François Monestier, Abou Ouattara, Annie Vallet and Beatrice Vunda.