Madras
Excerpt from the video "Women's prayer ", a first manifestation of the Madras project by Nadia Aït - Saïd, produced in the context of "Offerings", as part of a project called Mawita'jig on Aboriginal art. Centre d’artistes Vaste et Vague, Carleton- sur-Mer (QC), 2012, in collaboration with the curator France Trépannier and the videographer Estelle Marcoux .
MADRAS is the name of a participatory project consisting of thousands of scarves. I am collecting used scarves around the world to create a visual arts installation. Each scarf has its history, its sacredness, its secret. You can participate in this project and be part of it by offering a scarf that you or a loved one have already worn and is part of your story. You can also include its history. This gesture of giving away a scarf is an invitation to symbolically overcome an inner veil.
A madras is a brightly colored silk and cotton fabric. It evokes the silkworm that made it, as well as its transformation from larva to butterfly, thus illustrating a liberation process.
The scarf is a simple and meaningful object in the social, political and cultural context - whether the religious veil, the headscarf worn by the person with cancer, one the one used by coquetry or as a mark of cultural identity - will symbolically be used in this project to represent this theme.
How to participate in the scarves collection ?
You can participate in this project by offering a scarf that you or a loved one have already worn and is part of your story. You can also include its history.
You can simply send you scarves directly to the artist:
- by mail : 25 route Hamilton, Pabos, Québec, G0C 2H0
- to a depot in Quebec : click here
For the first material installation of the ongoing Madras project, Nadia Aït-Saïd has created the winter season Tenir feu et lieu. TENIR FEU ET LIEU is part of the special LA CONCORDANCE DES TEMPS program, which is part of Carleton-sur-Mer's 250th anniversary celebrations.
Offerings: women's prayers
I offered a first manifestation of the Madras project to the artist and curator France Trépanier by participating in "Offerings", a project on aboriginal art called Mawita'jig.
"Women"s prayer" is a video performance produced in collaboration with France Trépanier and videographer Estelle Marcoux, broadcast as part of this project at the Centre d'artistes Vaste et Vague in Carleton- sur-Mer.
Each one of those scarves belonged and was worn by women who are precious to me. Each scarf has its own story, its sacredness, its secret, its symbol… they have been presented to me as an offering, as a unique and sacred sharing.
Through this ritual, I assemble them in one prayer, one offering.
In this project, the process itself is artwork. Madras is created in sections, in different places and at different times, like the quilt created from scarves collected from all over the world. The entire project will be presented in a few years' time in the form of installations and large format projections, in interrelation, in Quebec and abroad.
A more detailed explanation as well as a genesis of the Madras project are presented in this 15 minutes video (in French) from La Vague culturelle.
A school welcomes an artist - Madras: a scarf, a history, an identity
In this video, 108 high school students participate in the production of a video production of Madras. The students made a "Madras" paper hood, covered with fabrics reminiscent of the quilt on the ground that the artist created from scarves collected from around the world. The objective, beyond becoming familiar with artistic creation and experimentation, is to question our way of perceiving and relating to the world.
Video by La Fabrique culturelle, Télé-Québec (5 min - in French), Chandler.
Scarves collection