Memories of the wool : “the Sieve of the Dom” carpet project

“The felted sieve on the center of the carpet” (credit : Yahya Al-Abdullah)

The project aimed to make a felted wool carpet in a colla­bo­ra­tion between five artists from the collec­tive of La Briche Foraine^[2]La Briche Foraine is an engaged artistic collec­tive in the city of Saint-Denis that has existed since 2011. See website : https://​labriche​.fr/ and ten Levan­tine Dom women living in St-Denis. The Levan­tine Dom is a margi­na­lized ethnic mino­rity that is often called pejo­ra­ti­vely, Qurbat, Nawar or Jangal, three words in Arabic that refer to a person who is « unci­vi­lized”, “unedu­cated” and “ill-mannered”. They had a semi-nomadic life style and circu­lated between Syria and Lebanon till the year 2011 when the Syrian upri­sing pushed many of them to join their fami­lies in Lebanon (Al-Abdullah, 2018). Dom is a cognate with Rom and Lom. Some histo­rians and linguists argue that there is an ethnic connec­tion between these ethnic groups although they are distri­buted in the Middle East and Europe (Herin, 2016). The argu­ment is based on the simi­la­ri­ties in struc­tural features between Domari and Romani languages. However, these linguistic simi­la­ri­ties could be due to the fact that both Central Indic languages shared a histo­rical charac­te­ristic of being languages of commer­cial nomads with parallel migra­tory patterns (Matras, 2012), so the evidence of having an ethnic connec­tion between the two groups is still a subject of speculations.

The Dom has a “double ancho­ring” (Sayad, 1999) in Syria and Lebanon throu­ghout the 20^th century. This ancho­ring was notably observed when a signi­fi­cant number of the commu­nity members moved to Lebanon after the Syrian upri­sing in March, 2011 and they then conti­nued to France and Belgium through the North African migra­tion route star­ting from 2014 (Al-Abdullah, 2023). This commu­nity was also econo­mi­cally dependent on the dental pros­thesis work and sieve making they had learned from their ances­tors (Al-Jibawi, 2006).

The project was realized by five main prolonged work­shops and several small sessions in the Asso­cia­tion Chapi­teau Rajga­nawak^[3]The Asso­cia­tion Chapi­teau Rajga­nawak is a hybrid socio-cultural and artistic place that hosts several work­shops and events that are aimed to work with local commu­ni­ties in the city of Saint-Denis. See the website : http://​rajga​nawak​.com/. I acti­vely parti­ci­pated in the first and last work­shops. In the first work­shop, I tried to elicit the infor­ma­tion from the Dom women about signi­fi­cant drawing, stories and symbols and to mediate between the actors in the project. My parti­ci­pa­tion in the last work­shop was to conduct inter­views with the parti­ci­pants and faci­li­tate the recap of the project. 

The choice of the mate­rial and the object was for both prac­tical and symbolic reasons. The first prac­tical aspect was the presence of an artist from la Briche collec­tive who is used to making felted wool carpets. The second aspect is that the Syrian Dom women are very fami­liar with the mate­rial as well. As for the symbolic part, it was linked to the posi­tive memo­ries that the wool could bring to an exiled commu­nity as a mate­rial they fabri­cated objects with and used in their own homes back in Syria and Lebanon. Another symbolic aspect is linked to the famous saying that each carpet has its own story and that this is what makes it special. So, this project was trying to create the unique story of inclu­sion in which this carpet could help the parti­ci­pants to get to know each other and create some­thing signi­fi­cant all toge­ther, as a recently arrived group and a host community.

“Water and Soap : Women Washing the carpet” (credit : Camille Brisson’s footage for the short documentary “Souf”)

The Dom women chose the symbolic central figure : a sieve, known to be manu­fac­tured by the Dom commu­nity in the Levant. In the middle of this sieve, there is a small object that is usually used to push the seeds or the liquid down through the net of the sieve. The sieve maker is a source of pride for the whole family as he guards the cultural heri­tage of the commu­nity (Al-Jibawi, 2006). The four arrows that are linked to the sieve are spikes of wheat. This is a refe­rence to the seasonal work in agri­cul­ture as well as an emphasis of the role of the sieve. While some women recalled the tattoos of wheat spikes that their grand­mo­thers used to have to symbo­lize ferti­lity, others said that it was used as a beau­ti­fying element. To honor the hybrid team and the place where the carpet was made, the team decided to embroider their names in Arabic and the place and the year in French.

There were three impor­tant high­lights in this project. The first was trans­for­ma­tion of the savoir-faire between two different groups regar­ding the same mate­rial. As most of the Dom women explained that they used to use the wool to make many bedding objects for marrying couples in the family, they managed to learn a comple­tely new set of skills with the same mate­rial, and shared their exper­tise with the artists in the project. The second was the discus­sion about what is consi­dered by the society to be a profes­sion and what is not. For the Dom women, the arti­sanal work they did in bedding was not consi­dered as a profes­sion, because it lacked the presence of a proper work­shop and the possi­bi­lity to present it to the public and even­tually sell it. It was just what they learned to do and kept doing at home for personal use. The third, the carpet was acquired by the Mucem and is a part of the national collec­tion. That is to say, the Dom, as a migrant commu­nity in France, managed to have a trace of their cultural heri­tage in the host country.

To conclude, this project is an attempt to shed the light and give value to the arti­sanal work women are deprived of. The project managed to create a human connec­tion between all the members of the team and also managed to create a beau­tiful carpet that tells the story of the arrival of this displaced commu­nity in the city of Saint-Denis in France and part of their cultural heri­tage. The project has had a very inter­es­ting conti­nua­tion as well. The carpet stays as a part of the national collec­tion of Mucem. In addi­tion to that, the artists created a women’s collec­tive to make carpets now called “Les Marchandes de Tapis & Co”^[4]Les Marchandes de Tapis continue their arti­sanal work in France and in other coun­tries. Their work can be followed in their Face­book page : https://​www​.face​book​.com/​l​e​s​m​a​r​c​h​a​n​d​e​s​d​etapis and their Insta­gram page : https://​www​.insta​gram​.com/​l​e​s​m​a​r​c​h​a​n​d​e​s​d​e​tapis/ that conti­nues making similar projects in France and abroad.