The loom in Ait Bouguemez is not an object. It is a member of the household, fed wool in the morning and stories at night. We were invited to listen for three years; we are publishing what we were allowed to keep.
Region
Middle Atlas, Morocco
Years
2022 to 2025
Discipline
Textile, oral history
Partners
Ait Bouguemez Cooperative
A three year residency with the master weavers of the Middle Atlas, recording the dialect of warp and weft that has held a valley together for nine generations.
The Invitation
The project began with a hand-delivered letter from the cooperative council asking us to record their elders before another winter. The terms were set in their kitchen, not ours. We were given the loom room for three seasons a year, on the condition that nothing left the valley without the council's stamp.
The Practice
Each carpet recorded carries between six hundred and twelve hundred hours of work, dyed with walnut hull, madder, and the indigo brought once a year from the south. We documented the dye cycle, the chant that times the knot, and the small repairs that mothers make on their daughters' beginner pieces.
The Return
The valley now holds its own digital archive in two languages, a small repair fund for elder weavers, and three new apprentices on full stipend. Our copies sit in our library, accessible to scholars by application, with the council holding the right of final consent on every citation.
“We did not want a film about us. We wanted a record we could hand to our daughters.”
Council Letter, Ait Bouguemez Cooperative, 2022
