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AFOLKI BERBER RUGS Nodi che legano Il tappeto berbero tra espressività tradizionale e design contemporano
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ready-made and Afolki Berber Rugs present:
Tying knots
Berber rug between traditional expressivity and contemporary design
14th- 15th- 16th of April 2010 – 6 pm to 8 pm
17th- 18th of April 2010 – 10 am to 10 pm
HISTORY, MYTH AND SEDUCTION: THE TIMELESS ART OF BERBER WEAVERS
by Chiara Battini, textile art expert
Press release
Tying knots is the title of the exhibition of Berber textiles, installed in occasion of the FuoriSalone 2010 at the ready-made editorial studio at 44/A, Foro Buonaparte, in Milan.
The exhibition explores the meaning of the new decorative value that the Berber rug is bringing to life according to the original interpretation of Mohamed El Alami, founder of the Afolki Berber Rugs brand.
Initially created with the intent to diffuse objects and furnishing elements of the ancient Berber artisan culture, Afolki soon specialised in the research and commerce of precious carpets, coming from different tribes, which are nowadays very rare, creating a network of people and relations on the whole Berber area of Morocco.
The research work and the exclusive network on the territory made Afolki become an important reference for the galleries of the most rare carpets on international level and more recently also for European architects and designers.
Today, in fact, contemporary interior architecture is looking at material, graphic and pictorial expressiveness as an element able to exploit the design of interiors with a contribute dense of meaning, that goes beyond the aesthetical value.
The rug, which is a testimony of ancient textile culture of Berber women, expresses the evolution and change of feelings and emotions of the complex female world.
Berber women are the only authors of these rugs. They have the task to manage all the working phases: from wool shearing and carding to the actual weaving, spinning and dying.
Berber women are also the ones who choose the plants from which to extract the pigments to create the colour palettes and especially the pattern designs.
The rug is a true and unique language of a social and at the same time intimate history, with which good wishes were given or family stories were told.
Berber women of the past, anonymous main characters of the history, still communicate today through their personal ancestral art to a much broader public.
Getting to know these cultural Berber layers and paying attention to contemporary architecture and design, pushed Mohamed El Alami to explore a new interpretation of the traditional rug, trying to find a synergy between the two worlds.
With Afolki, new cooperatives of women, including elderly women and skilful teachers, will be able to welcome the designers’ proposals and realise, according to their interpretation, new and interesting products that can also be site specific.
Tying knots therefore contemplates manufactured pieces that physically entangle the wool to the warp yarn, but also, in an ideal sense, the desires and expectations of different worlds.
Afolki wants to build, in such way, a deep relationship between two realities that start getting to know one another and penetrate one in the other’s world, establishing important connections and guaranteeing life to a really ancient tradition also in the future.
Hand-made pieces with fine wools, dyed with vegetal colours, spun and weaved respecting traditional techniques, the “Tying knots” rugs will mix traditional typologies and new designs together.
The rugs, almost as if they were textile pictures, cover walls and floors in the original display realized at the ready-made publishing studio. The rugs are found between desks and bookshelves communicating their own meanings and searching for new authors.
The exhibition is composed by three different collections: Beni Ouarain, Azilal and Boucherouite, together with a sample selection of new patterns as examples of possible future productions.
Beni Ouarain
The most known amongst Berber rugs, mainly in a black and white duotone obtained with wools that are not dyed, with a lozenge pattern, come from the Middle Atlas Mountains area.
Measuring 180 cm x 350 cm circa, they were originally used as a family bed, spread on the ground in the tents constituting a sort of floor for thermal insulation and they welcome the sleep of the whole clan.
Azilal
Visually very similar to the Beni Ouarain rugs, but otherwise called “crazy rugs” because of their strong graphic discontinuity.
This group represents a break in the rules of the game, the only possible one: an intervention on the usual traditional design, to break it, de-structure it and change it, in such way expressing a new emotional content that often is outlined during the making process.
These rugs are weaved with different materials and techniques: wools, cottons and synthetic fabrics recovered from second-hand fabrics, they come from the Middle Atlas Mountains area.
Boucherouite
Boucherouite or “carpet of rags” is the last group of the exhibited Afolki collection.
Made with wools (warp yarn) and recovered textiles (weave), their original use is difficult to identify (disused garments, table-cloths, covers), they are made of cotton, wool and sometimes synthetic fabric.
The result is unusual carpets, original colour-combinations and contemporary textures, regained with the skilfulness of the ancient knotting technique.
These rugs come from the area of the Azilal region and generally they are of small or medium sizes.
ready-made was founded in Milan in 1989 and since then operates in the publishing field producing art and architecture catalogues, touristic guides, cookbooks, medicine books, travel books, taking into account history, current affairs and culture topics - building up an idea of publishing that aims to be the product of a workshop of high artisan quality.
Alongside working within the fine editorial field, ready-made organises exhibitions and events of national importance.
In addition to various young artist exhibitions that took place in its Foro Buonaparte venue, ready-made organised the “Net art 1995-2005” exhibition at the Santa Teresa library in Milan. This exhibition contemplated the Milanese writers’ scene that took place during the opening of the Bovisa venue of the Milan Triennale. In this occasion ready-made realised, with the intervention of hundreds of writers, “Bovisa in line”, an urban furnishing and decorating event in the area of the Triennale Bovisa.
Afolki
via Sarson 61
36061 Bassano del Grappa (Vi) – Italy
Tel/fax +39 0424 504662
Mobile +39328742960
ready-made
Publishing studio
Foro Buonaparte 44/A
20121 Milano
Tel +39 02 72022920
Fax +39 02 72023455
Press contact
Monica Racic
Tel +39 02 36503251
Monica Masiero +39 3358455470
Maria Elena Fantasia +39 3389327550
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