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That in the heart of the Algerian Sahara desert there existed a fully equipped and functioning ceramic workshop and, even more uniquely, that it was run by a cooperative of women potters is a discovery that has something incredible about it. That this story then connected to a distant and concluded part of my past for me also has to do with destiny. It was like finally closing a circle opened years ago when I was on the verge of leaving for Algeria with a study delegation to visit Saharawi encampments. The trip did not materialize for security reasons (Algeria was then going through a period of great turmoil due to fundamentalist terrorist attacks) but the interest in this unfortunate and courageous desert people has never ceased.
The ceramic workshop in the Tindouf refugee camp is an extraordinary example of how the iron will of women and the solidarity of the associational world can accomplish what seems impossible to achieve. The protagonists of this unique experience are some young Saharawi women. To understand how it was possible to get such a difficult project off the ground, we need to start with them, the Saharawi women and their story, the story of the entire Saharawi people, who for almost 50 years have been measuring themselves against an inhospitable place such as the Tindouf refugee camp in the Algerian Hammada, one of the harshest and most hostile Sahara regions in the world. It is precisely because of the forced experience of exile and the needs generated by the state of war that Saharawi women have experienced a revolutionary change from the roles played within a traditional nomadic society. This evolution has enabled them to gain great decision-making power in the political project for the liberation and independence of Western Sahara. Without a shadow of a doubt they are, outside and inside the camps, the driving force behind the impressive resilience of the Saharawi people and a unique example in the world of active female participation in the creation of the structures that have responded to the needs of a population in exile.
What better occasion then than the Matres Festival of Women's Ceramics, and in particular the Conference on Ceramics as a Social Experience, organized during the days of the Festival, to talk about Saharawi women potters and present their incredible workshop? With obstinacy and persevering work, thanks to the invaluable help of the associations supporting the Saharawi people "El Ouali" of Bologna and the "Tiris" Association of Naples and the representation in Italy of the Polisario Front, the political and representative arm of the Saharawi people, we succeeded in a difficult but necessary intent to be able to shine a spotlight on this extraordinary experiment. From the refugee camps, after a long journey, a young Saharawi potter, Fatimetu Fraikin Cori, arrived in Italy to participate in the Matres Festival! Through her precious testimony Fatimetu showed us the strength and beauty of her cooperative working group, a cohesive group of women potters who face enormous difficulties every day in the camps. We thus had the opportunity to get to know their workshop, to touch and see their pottery up close, to listen to their needs, to understand their strengths but also their weaknesses. We discussed and debated the theme of women-made pottery as an experiment in socialization and as a bridge of solidarity between peoples.
As an association that enhances and promotes the skills and diversity of women in a field like ceramics that is heavily monopolized by a male-dominated scene, what piqued our interest was precisely the central role that Saharawi women have had and continue to have in the social and political organization of the camps, obviously with a specific focus on what it might mean to be a ceramist in a refugee camp and what its possible evolutions and perspectives might be.
It is in this difficult context that the pottery project in the desert carried out in the camps by the El Ouali Association of Bologna fits in, which, for those who know what we are talking about, proposes something exceptional. Making pottery in itself is not easy! It is not for us potters who, although we have everything we need in the comforts and conveniences of our efficient and technological workshops, we know well how unpredictable and insidious the clay, the colors, the glazes are. It is almost prohibitive for those who live, or rather survive, in such an inhospitable place as the Sahara Desert, with few means at their disposal other than humanitarian aid. And especially with water and energy rationed, with a torrid and dry climate and with sand seeping everywhere. This is well known by the volunteer Italian ceramists who with great professionalism and passion have trained the young ceramists, brought everything needed from Italy and continue to assist the workshop with periodic visits to the camps. I cannot fail to mention and thank Giorgio Baldisserri, a ceramist friend of the Saharawi people who has been following this project for years and who is invaluable not only to the ceramists in the camps but also to the many Saharawi children he entertains and cheers up with his educational ceramic workshops every year. And thanks again to another volunteer friend, Valeria Gobbo, who was invaluable for everything related to contacting the lab in the camps, communicating with and assisting Fatimetu on her trip to Italy.
The experience of Saharawi women potters is an outstanding example of stubbornness, resilience and cooperation for thousands of women around the world! We, the women potters of Pandora, are proud and satisfied to have made our proximity to our Saharawi colleagues felt and to have succeeded in making this reality known to a wider audience but also to an industry audience such as that of the Matres Festival. A unique opportunity for these women, a unique opportunity for us, a first track to mark a trail that maybe in the near future can lead us to Tindouf, in the camps, to a great Matres Festival of Desert Ceramics. Or better yet in the free and independent Western Sahara, sooner or later!
Because pottery is solidarity, pottery is resistance, pottery is peace!
FOCUS ON THE CERAMIC WORKSHOP
The idea of setting up a ceramic workshop in the Tindouf refugee camps was born in 2010 thanks to the Association for the Support of the Saharawi People "El Ouali" of Bologna. The main objective was to professionally train an initial nucleus of craftswomen from among the young women of the Dakla camp who were predisposed to manual skills and creativity, and at the same time generate a source of income, albeit minimal, to contribute to the livelihood of their families. Another no less important goal of the project was to create a common space where they could socialize and escape the monotony of tent life. In 2013, the project was expanded with the collaboration with the El Aiun ceramic workshop established in 2005 by a project of some Spanish associations and funded by the city of Puzol (Valencia) but then entrusted to the care of the Bologna-based association El Ouali. In 2011 the workshop also became a ceramics school where each year new girls are trained by the same ceramists who will work in the ceramics cooperative in the future.
FOCUS ON SAHARAWI HISTORY
Between 1975 and 1976, in the aftermath of the Green March, after the Moroccan military and civilian invasion of Western Sahara-the former colony of the Spanish Sahara-located between Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Atlantic Ocean-a large part of the people who inhabited it, the Saharawis, were forced into exile in neighboring Algeria, in the province of Tindouf. Here precisely, in the middle of the desert, refugee camps have been equipped to accommodate several hundred thousand displaced people and which, from a socio-anthropological point of view, are unique in the characteristics with which they have been conceived and structured. In spite of objections in international fora at the beginning to the Saharawi being an uncultured and unorganized nomadic population, not representative of an autonomous and independent ethnic body, having proclaimed a state in exile, the RASD (Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic) was the winning move. The Saharawis have been able to organize with few means and in an inhospitable territory such as the Tindouf refugee camps a health system, an educational system, a legal system independent of the host state, a radio, television, a library and a historical memory archive, friendship and cooperation relations through efficient and active political representations in numerous countries. In short, everything a state should have but under a regime of severe restrictions.
It is the longest-running and most complex humanitarian crisis on the international geopolitical scene that of the Saharawis, involving numerous international actors with definite economic and strategic interests. But it is also the least known conflict, the one that has been least reported in the media. It is therefore not surprising that most people do not know at all who the Saharawis are and where their tragedy is unfolding! The issue, still far from being resolved, has recently made international headlines thanks to the European scandals of Qatargate and Moroccogate. These events have hit like a tsunami at the heart of European institutions, revealing palace intrigues and unmasking pseudo-philanthropic defenders of human rights. They showed to all the weakness of Europe in the face of the power of money and its hypocrisy toward the weakest. At last, light was shed on the extremely harsh living conditions the Saharawis are subjected to in the occupied territories and inside the refugee camps and a voice was given to those who have been denouncing for years the unjust expropriation of the immense natural resources of Western Sahara at the hands of the Moroccan invaders and its direct partners, including many companies from European countries, including Italy. What was supposed to be a temporary exile pending the referendum on self-determination, unequivocally sanctioned by the United Nations as the undisputed right of the indigenous peoples of Western Sahara, has turned into an extremely harsh forced stay that has profoundly scarred the Saharawi people, especially the younger generation.
