{"id":10986,"date":"2013-10-10T08:45:03","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T12:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=10986"},"modified":"2013-10-10T11:37:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T15:37:41","slug":"hamid-kachmars-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/hamid-kachmars-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamid Kachmar’s Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Via Boston.com\u2019s Brainiac, this info on an Amazigh (Berber) artist whose show I would love to catch \u201a but can\u2019t, unhappily. If in or around Boston, try to do so.<\/p>\n

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Using art to preserve an endangered language\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
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Posted by Kevin Hartnett \u00a0October 7, 2013 01:10 PM<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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How do you preserve a language that\u2019s in danger of being forgotten?\u00a0Turn it into art. The\u00a0Sherman Gallery\u00a0<\/a>at Boston University is currently\u00a0running an exhibition<\/a>of works by Moroccan artist Hamid Kachmar, who for twenty years has been using his paintings to help keep alive an embattled, indigenous language.Tifinagh is the ancient script of the Berbers, a minority ethnic group in Morocco to which Kachmar belongs.\u00a0Tifinagh has been suppressed historically in Morocco, but Kachmar makes the script\u2019s intricate symbols the main element of his colorful art.\u00a0In some pieces, like the first one below, \u201cTimitar 1 Symbols in Symbiosis,\u201d the symbols are presented in neat fashion, as if they were being catalogued.\u00a0In others, like the bottom image, \u201cTafsut Berber Spring,\u201d Kachmar uses the symbols in more abstract form, to create images that evoke the Berber language\u2019s complicated place in Moroccan culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cHamid Kachmar: Reviving the Ancient Tifinagh Script\u00a0<\/a>\u201d runs at the Sherman Gallery from September 6-October 20.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

BU\u2019s Visual Arts pages give the following information:<\/p>\n

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In Reviving the Ancient Tifinagh Script, Kachmar renders the ancient Amazigh script, Tifinagh, into textual and visual compositions that represent\u00a0a struggle for identity, cultural survival, and self-conception. For centuries, the Tifinagh script has been politically suppressed; painted out of Amazigh people\u2019s collective consciousness. For Hamid and many other cultural activists of his generation, Tifinagh represents not just the ancient script of a still widely spoken indigenous language, but also a symbol of the struggle for cultural survival.<\/p>\n

Kachmar\u2019s materials and techniques evoke metaphors, moods, and expressions of his home country and his experiences abroad. Hamid uses the Tifinagh script and Amazigh motifs in written, painted, carved, and woven compositions that are sometimes overtly textual and sometimes purely visual without any semantic meanings. The artist states,<\/p>\n

\u201cTifinagh script has been omnipresent in my work for more than two decades. It is a very intimate, loyal, and existential relationship that has linked the script of my mother tongue, Tamazigh, and me; a relationship that began at age thirteen when I first knew that my Amazigh \u201cBerber\u201d language had a script of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibition is curated by Cynthia Becker, Associate Professor of Art History, in Boston University\u2019s Department of History of Art and Architecture and presented as part of Boston University\u2019s African Studies Center 60th Anniversary celebration.<\/p>\n

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Images courtesy of the Boston University College of Fine Arts<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

This blog is not written or edited by Boston.com or the Boston Globe.
\nThe author is solely responsible for the content.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via Boston.com\u2019s Brainiac, this info on an Amazigh (Berber) artist whose show I would love to catch \u201a but can\u2019t, unhappily. If in or around Boston, try to do so. Using art to preserve...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1435,898,15,1367],"tags":[1758],"class_list":["post-10986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazigh","category-ancient-languages","category-art-exhibition","category-berber-literature","tag-hamid-kachmar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10986"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10998,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10986\/revisions\/10998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}