During the latest ITHACA consortium meeting held in Tunisia in June 2024, the ITHACA team left to Guermassa, a small village close to Tataouine, 6 hours south-east from Tunis by car. Here they visited the fieldwork of one of the ITHACA narratives of the present tasks, inaugurating the visual-tactile artistic archive of a women cooperative, created by the project partner ARCS Tunisie.
In the region of Tataouine, women are often left alone, the tradition being that the man migrates to seek his fortune elsewhere and to support the whole family. The preferred destination, mainly for linguistic reasons, is France, but Italy is also often chosen.
‘My grandfather was a migrant, my grandmother used to weave and embroider to help, together with her husband, to cover all the needs of the house, whether it was traditional clothes or blankets and carpets,’ Sara says.
Through embroidery and weaving to make blankets and carpets these women manage to cover the needs of the household; they do not have to buy anything from outside, they use what they produce, they produce what is needed, for them and for the whole family. A small community welfare.
Many of Germassa’s children are considered ‘lost’ because of their father’s absence, something the women here have to deal with. They describe migration as ‘a double-edged sword’ that is sometimes necessary but very painful, a kind of choice that leaves permanent consequences on those who suffer it. Families are broken, existences frayed and nobody knows how and when they will be reunited.
These stories are told in a series of videos available on the ITHACA YouTube channel and embroidered on the textiles masterfully produced by the women cooperative of Guermassa, using a technique called “margoum”. Margoum is a renowned traditional weaving art from southern Tunisia.
These videos complement the ITHACA permanent tactile exhibition showcasing Margoum pieces at the tourist station where our Tunisian women artisan storytellers work. On each panel in the exhibition, a Margoum textile is accompanied by a QRCode connecting the visitors to the video-interview of its creator.
