Audible Tapestries

Background

Our Trailblazers project, Audible Tapestries, has allowed us to research Somali nomadic weaving techniques and tactile technologies that can be incorporated into.

Conventionally, all weaving is done by women in Somali nomadic life from the creation of the Aqal (a portable house) to almost all of the household objects within it. For example, an essential woven object is a vessel that preserves milk (in particular camel milk) and is also used for churning sheep milk into Subaq (a ghee like substance) which forms a smoked butter essential for preserving food such as camel meat.

Habo Doll (Fozia’s aunt) weaving Aalool in Somaliland

Our research findings into Somali Weaving Practices

The craft and art of weaving has been largely gone unacknowledged because it is considered a woman's role which much like most tasks carried out by women is marginalised within society and rarely recorded in written history.

In contrast, men are typically known for making carved wooden objects which have been revered and archived even in western institutions such as the Bristol Museum which owns carved wooden hair picks and pillow stands which are then displayed for an international audience. The recording and preservation of men’s work gives it value and precedence over women’s work. Despite weaving being at the heart of Somali nomadic life and culture, it has been devalued and mostly marginalised in the recording of Somali history. The practice is not seen as art based as it is intrinsically linked with the survival and protection of the family from wild animals and harsh weather.

Aagaans (milk vessels) at Degmo farm

Fullerton and Adan encapsulate our feelings and thoughts in the research paper Handicrafts of the Nomadic Women of Somalia:

“In this semi-desert, the Somali people have developed a portable house called an Aqal which is in complete harmony with its environment. The land may look baren and hostile but it contains all the necessary material for [the] Aqal and its contents. It is a brilliant illustration of the economic use of limited resources; an invention forced by the conditions of life and totally Somali in character. And yet, the ingenious skill that produces these crafts has been rather neglected by foreign scholars and taken for granted at home.”1

The majority of the elders who grew up in the countryside in Somalia were displaced to major cities across the world in built up urbanised environments. The elders do not see the functionality or the art form of weaving and other nomadic crafts in highly industrialised countries that they found themselves in. There is not the same access to nature.

Furthermore, weaving is linked to the environment and draws from the materials of the local landscape and they struggled to find alternatives for the plants and grasses that they would use back home.

Learning to weave

As a result, we struggled to find a UK based weaver so we were taught by a Melbourne based artist and master weaver called Muhubo Sulieman who runs Qaymi Arts in Melbourne, Australia. An interesting point Muhubo made was that the Australian climate was very familiar in parts to Somalia and so she could source similar materials from the natural environment to recreate traditional woven objects and even the Aqal.

We went to Hawkwood in early May to learn the basics of traditional finger weaving. We did this over a number of Zoom workshops and sharing of instructional videos via WhatsApp. We felt held by Muhubo who taught us some of the basics of nomadic weaving.

Although incredibly difficult to work through Zoom we did eventually get the technique and it’s quite amazing that one of the oldest surviving craft techniques (more than 12 thousand years old) could be mediated by such a new technology.

Weaving workshop with Muhubo at Hawkwood residency

The practicalities of conductive materials

We experimented with conductive thread initially but found the grey colour of the thread clashed with and was at odds with the colourful nature of the Somali tapestries. We were disappointed to find that there had been no innovation when it came to this type of material, innovation that would allow it to be flexible and integrative to the variety of work that is being carried out in many art and technology projects.

After a meeting with Becca Rose, a resident of PM Studio and e-textile artist, we learnt of copper wiring and it became a stand-in for conductive thread. The copper stood out in the tapestry but highlighted the technological component of the work in a way that didn’t subtract from its beauty.

Weaving, songs and communion

Somali people have a variety of songs that are used during their work, these are work songs called heeso hawleed which they sing to pass the time, and entertain themselves. The songs can be new or off the cuff, the melody or the words can change. There are work songs for every conceivable activity from camel herding to milk churning to weaving.

The Kebed is the most valued woven object for the Aqal covering the top of the structure and is made from Acacia Bussei trees which are currently endangered due to the charcoal trade in Somalia.

Prototype for Audible Tapestries project

The Kebed is usually made in communal gatherings of women whereby a group of women stay over with the Kebed owner and assist for four days to a week to complete the mat. The singing that accompanies this activity makes the work more bearable and joyful, making time move faster.

“The women think of Kebed making as cementing the bonds of sisterhood...There is much singing and laughter, which makes the work lighter”2

For us there was a tension with starting a piece of tapestry and the process of weaving that is rooted in the anxiety around our culture, what we have lost through displacement. Laughter was and is a key way of getting through this tension.

We recorded ourselves as we were learning to weave, a quote from one of the recordings below:

“A lot of our laughter comes from trauma. We've kind of had this culture that it's very much like, there's no use and being down. Because What's that gonna do for you? So find some sort of laughter in your pain. This is a coping mechanism.”

We're open to the fact that we don't know enough about our cultural practices and that we're still learning what it means to embody it. We are trying to relearn what it means to be Somali for us, in our own way with all of its complexities.

We know we embody the values but we do not know the history that it is born out of. As we learn the physical rituals and activities, we start to slow our minds down and open ourselves up to questions that lead us to seek a greater understanding of the whole.

“The mat is praised and personified and given the power to express ideas that reflect the wishes and dreams of those who made it”3

Working with tapestries has created a new pathway to knowledge about our culture. Ultimately, we are recreating what it means to be Somali and through weaving we found something that can slow us down and ground us in it. A kind of therapeutic practice that has allowed us to weave through the ruptures of Somali diasporic experiences.

Outcomes of project:

• Tapestry prototype
• Hawkwood residency
• Numbi arts Showcase – 25 people
• Developing partnership with Degmo and Cardiff community
• Wellcome Collection talk on weaving and camel milk cultures at Milk and Whiteness event. 80 people in attendance, 1067 people have viewed the talk on Youtube
• Pervasive Media Show & Tell – roughly 20 people
• Successful Developing Your Creative Practice Arts Council bid
• Upcoming workshops with Mosaic Gallery

At Hawkwood residency, Right of image is Fozia and to the Left is Ayan

1 Fullerton and Adan, Handicrafts of the Nomadic Women of Somalia (1986) in African Nomadic Architecture: Space, Place, and Gender by Labelle Prussin and Amina Adan (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995) p.1

2 Fullerton and Adan, Handicrafts of the Nomadic Women of Somalia (1986) in African Nomadic Architecture: Space, Place, and Gender by Labelle Prussin and Amina Adan (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995) p.10

3 Fullerton and Adan, Handicrafts of the Nomadic Women of Somalia (1986) in African Nomadic Architecture: Space, Place, and Gender by Labelle Prussin and Amina Adan (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995) p.8