‘La carte des jours/The Map of Days’ created with Lucie Maxin & The Gifted Mothers
in ‘Archéologies’, cur. Laila Hida & Inès Yahiaoui
on view until 25th December 2027 
Fondation Dar Bellarj, Marrakech

Excerpt from exhibition newspaper, I. Yahiaoui:

Water at Dar Bellarj is central to a research project that informs the Speculative Garden and the group workshops. Their encounter with the Mothers began with a conversation about the memory of the wells, fountains, gardens, and khettara (underground irrigation system) of Marrakech. But while water initially served as an entry point, echoing stories of the oasis, the workshop quickly expanded to encompass broader life experiences. Through discussion and then drawing, the participants mapped the places where they feel at ease: a garden like the Menara, the interior of a house, a familiar route.

These everyday narratives emerged in layers, initially through drawing, prompted by the artists. Individual stories that nonetheless reveal a sensitive and collective unders- tanding of the territory. To capture the workshop, a method was needed to bring this collective mental image to life. Monotype printing, chosen for its ability to produce a unique collective image, was selected. Embroidery then emerged naturally, as a shared gesture already present in daily life, and also as a means of intergenerational trans- mission between mothers and young women during the workshops: where women create a visual language passed down from generation to generation, each stitch beco- mes a testament to memory, lived experience, identity, and connection to a place, forming a «mother tongue taught to a few» that survives even when books and official maps erase the stories.