When the sediments of the Arcachon basin become works of art, exhibited at the Frac in Bordeaux

The artist and anthropologist Salima Naji has created a work using sediments from the Basin for the exhibition "Aïta, poetic fragments of a Moroccan scene" at the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine.

To preserve Morocco's ancestral traditions from oblivion, the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine in Bordeaux, with the support of the French Institute in Morocco, invited contemporary artists to explore the country's cultural memory. Based on the photographic series "Le Chant de l'ombre" (2018) by artist Mohssin Harraki, acquired by the Frac in 2019, some thirty artists created works for the exhibition "Aïta, Poetic Fragments of a Moroccan Scene."

Sonia Recasens, the curator, had already called upon architect and anthropologist Salima Naji for a previous exhibition, "The Spirit of Gesture" in Paris, which reinterpreted gestures, motifs, and materials passed down through the centuries and through migrations. Salima Naji, for her part, works on adapting to global warming through the use of ancestral construction techniques. At the Frac, she anchors this heritage in the earth by erecting a wall of silt bricks. These are unique, made from alluvial soils from the Arcachon Basin (supplied by the Syndicat Intercommunal du Bassin d'Arcachon), mixed with mother-of-pearl and crushed oysters.

This project is part of a cycle of research and experiments carried out at the National School of Architecture and Landscape of Bordeaux ( Ensap ) by the Greccau laboratory, around the manufacture of bricks from sediments of the Basin based on a thesis by the architect and researcher Quentin Prost . The work, carried out in several workshops between March and June, resulted in the construction of the work designed by Salima Naji. An exercise led by the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which creates correspondences between the arts, artistic practices and individuals.

"So, here we are in Aquitaine. And we are also in Morocco, connected by this traditional architecture, which you also have in the Southwest, in Gers, Tarn," points out Salima Naji.

"In Morocco, even though there is a highly developed tradition, raw earth is associated with poverty and archaism. But it goes far beyond that. Because we are dealing with legacies from the past and, at the same time, with an innovative approach. It's what I call paleo-innovation," smiles Salima Naji. "The questions are: what do we retain from what was bequeathed to us by our ancestors? And where do we turn to invent our future?"

The bricks used by the artist are obviously not suitable for construction, because they are too crumbly, mixed with mother-of-pearl and oysters, "but without them, the silt can be completely reprocessed, molded, we can design objects with it, it can have a second life, a development in design," underlines Salima Naji.

The group exhibition "Aïta, Poetic Fragments of a Moroccan Scene," which opened on July 3, invited around thirty Moroccan artists to celebrate "Aïta," Morocco's ancestral poetic and musical art. It runs until January 4, 2026, at the Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine , Bordeaux.