Image: Artisan Project Mountain Rug. Image Credit: artisanprojectinc.com.

Don’t forget to enter this Issue 98: Together competition for a chance to win an Artisan Project Mountain Rug. Artisan Project is a collective company founded in 2011 by designer Nina Mohammad-Galbert. After moving from Los Angeles to the ancient city of Fes in Morocco, Nina launched the Artisan Project as an organisation specialising in producing handwoven textiles and creating curated sourcing experiences for anyone with a passion for craft and a desire to connect with the land and artisans of Morocco. Nina felt that the traditional weavers of Morocco were being undervalued and underappreciated in the modernisation of Morocco's textile market. These woven works come into being through the action of weavers, yet the women behind their production often went unrecognised. Nina created the Artisan Project in hopes of providing sustainable pricing that reflected the hours of labour and love going into the creation of each woven work.

Image: The artisans of Artisan Project. Image Credit: artisanprojectinc.com.

This Mountain Rug was created by the ‘Amazigh’ women of Fes. More commonly known as Berbers, the ‘Amazigh’ – meaning ‘free humans’ – are part of a nomadic people whose culture comes with a rich textile history deeply rooted in nature and the landscape. This sentiment is translated to the woven rugs through its highly sacred hand-weaving process. The locally sourced wool used to produce The Mountain Rug is referred to as ‘baraka,’ which translates to a divine blessing. Each step of the weaving process – from the wool’s initial sheering, to the washing, combing, carding, and spinning of the fibre – is a new ritual performed. The contemporary reinterpretations of Amazigh symbols are woven on ancestral vertical looms by fourth generation weavers through a meticulous process of hand-knotting.

Image: The artisans of Artisan Project. Image Credit: artisanprojectinc.com.