Reading Symbols

Sara OUHADDOU has often collaborated with craftsmen and Moroccan women on numerous projects. Take, for example, her work “Bou-Oumlil” (2015), which she introduced at the artist talk held on December 6, 2020. The title means “recycled textiles” in the language of the Amazigh people,(*1) who are native to Morocco and to whom Ouhaddou traces her roots. In her work, she analyzes the current situation of the Amazigh in the Atlas region, whose culture is in danger of disappearing due to urbanization and whose economy is increasingly impoverished due to capitalism. Through her projects, she intends to reevaluate traditional crafts, reinvent their value, and create a new market for them. In “Woven/Unwoven” (2014-2018), she worked with traditional weaving communities in northern Morocco to explore the independence of soon-to-be-married women in the area.
Thus, despite her direct connection with traditional crafts, Ouhaddou has also explored the social context surrounding their evolution. She examines who is responsible for passing on traditions, what economies are created by them, who is affected by them, and how they are at odds with contemporary society. She sees traditional crafts as symbols of communal society and culture.
Following her projects in Morocco, Ouhaddou participated in an artist-in-residence program in Tokyo in 2018. It was then that she visited Aomori for a few days to do research and is where she first encountered “kogin-zashi” embroidery and Jomon pottery. It was also the start of a project that culminated in her recent exhibition at the Aomori Contemporary Art Centre (ACAC). Ouhaddou’s project focused on the similarities between the prehistoric pottery found in the Atlas region where the Amazigh call home, the patterns in traditional Amazigh textiles and other crafts, and the patterns of Aomori’s “kogin-zashi” and Jomon pottery.
While Ouhaddou has held related exhibitions in the past, “AA-Atlas/Aomori” presents three works related to her latest findings. The first, “Manifesto”, is a series of photographs and annotations regarding the earthenware, textiles, and “kogin-zashi” embroidery that Ouhaddou has encountered in the course of her research in Aomori and the Atlas region. The series also contains notes where she discusses what these patterns mean, such as spiral patterns for the sun and diamond shapes that can symbolize infinity or the stars.

“Manifesto” was exhibited on a wall so that viewers could fill in sticky notes with any additional information or knowledge they had about each of the patterns. This sticky note system was not only a vital fact-finding exercise but also a valuable opportunity to hear directly from the current beneficiaries of Aomori’s traditional patterns, just as Ouhaddou had done in the Atlas region. It helped her understand how people in Aomori see and read these symbols, which have been passed down over generations among the people who live there. Some of the audience was surprised to find that the patterns in the Atlas region were so similar to those seen in “kogin-zashi”, while others described the shapes they saw in the designs, such as snowflakes or ripples in water. What one viewer finds in the patterns can tell us a lot about the environment in which they live. People who live with dogs will see the movements of these animals within certain lines. Conversely, those who have never seen snow will be unable to imagine it. People must accumulate certain experiences in order to perceive certain things(*2), and the accumulation of collective experiences can shape a communal culture and form its context.
“Atlas(1)” and “Aomori(1)” are two book-like works made of handmade paper that hinted at shifts in the meanings of patterns with their changes in context. On each page is a hand-drawn pattern, each found in the process of Ouhaddou’s research. The patterns are stripped of their mediums of earthenware, embroidery, or textile, morphing the books into something akin to a sample compilation of symbols. The handmade paper, which resembles thick cardboard, and the Japanese bookbinding, which uses fine threads, has a craft-like quality in and of itself. This piece seems to represent the moment of mutation in the succession of patterns, inviting the viewer to imagine a new context for these patterns, which will, in turn, be transmitted in different ways.
“Une conversation banale” is a video work that gives movement to these patterns. Aomori and Atlas are represented by blue and red lines, respectively, and they react to each other, sometimes intertwining to create new patterns. Photos of landscapes taken in Aomori and the Atlas region appear throughout the video. They may be the same landscapes that people who made these patterns once saw long ago. At the same time, the photographs were taken in the present, symbolizing the things that we can still recognize in these patterns today.
Patterns begin as simple lines and shapes and share many similarities throughout the world—in Aomori and Atlas alike. On the one hand, you could say that this suggests that there are certain similarities in the ways humans interact with the world. But on the other hand, some molds and shapes remain as symbols today, marking the fact that humanity has interpreted them in much the same way throughout its history. Ouhaddou’s attempts to reveal the journey of this symbolism and the beginnings of expression—a cyclical process of seeing, interpreting, representing, and then once again seeing—taking a large-scale, bird’s-eye view that extends across time and space.

*1 Commonly referred to as “Berbers,” Amazigh is the name that this ethnic group gives to themselves.
*2 Through the process of accumulating experiences (or learning), we are able to efficiently process the constant stream of visual information that bombards us. (Koga, Kazuo. Chikaku no shoutai. Dokomade ga chikaku de dokokara ga souzou ka [The True Nature of Perception: Where Perception Stops and Creation Begins]. Tokyo: Kawade Shobo Shinsha. 2011. Page 97.)

Text by KANEKO Yukiko