New Practices, New Narrative
Part One: The Sahrawi: From Camp to City
In this oral essay, Sahrawi artist and poet Mohamed Sleiman Labat is highlighting a number of emerging practices in the Sahrawi community, taking Samara Camp as a case study. The Sahrawi were the nomads of Western Sahara who have been dislocated in the Algerian Hamada desert. The Sahrawi are developing ways to adapt to the new situation, Sleiman Labat is tracing a number of such practices and initiatives that are creating a new narrative and identity. In the essay, he also re-visits aspects of the old narrative of the Sahrawi to highlight the loss of a way of life due to geopolitical factors.

New Practices, New Narrative. Part 1: The Sahrawi: From Camp To City. By Mohamed Sleiman Labat

Desert Knowledge, From the Oral Wisdom of the Nomads to Education in the Refugee Camps

New Practices, New Narrative. Part 2: Desert Knowledge by Mohamed Sleiman Labat

For a long time, desert sand felt like this cheap abundant lifeless useless thing that just fills the void around us. It's hot in the daytime and cold at night, nothing comes out of it and nothing grows on it. Or so we used to think. The picture I just painted in your mind about sand and the desert is easy to identify, we have been fed such a stereotype over and over again, in the media, in the movies and in the schoolbook texts.  The desert, as an entity, actually plays a crucial role in the earth’s ecosystem as well as in the life of the local communities who live in it and depend on it for their survival.

New Practices, New Narrative. Part 3: Food from Sand by Mohamed Sleiman Labat

Motif Art Studio is located in Samara Refugee Camp near Tindouf, south west Algeria. Built entirely from discarded Materials by artist Mohamed Sleiman who is the founder of the studio, it is now a small hub for art creation and art education. Sleiman and other artists, Sahrawi and international, use the studio space to create their art projects and provide workshops and other educational sessions on art, photography as well as a number of presentations and art talks.

Motif Art Studio

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