ABSTRACT ON THE SEJNANE HAND-MADE POTTERY

© C.Sorand

In 2018, when UNESCO added the terracotta art of Sejnane, Tunisia to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, this female handmade pottery art suddenly became known everywhere. Handmade pottery represents one aspect of the Berber traditional art forms among others such as tapestry, jewelry, or even the fast-disappearing tattoos. Each of the three north-African countries continues to perpetrate the tradition: Tamegroute or the Rift area, in Morocco, the Kabyle or Chaoui potteries in Algeria, and the Kroumirie or Douiret ones in Tunisia. Sejnane is a small country community in the Mogod hills of northern Tunisia. As is often the case among the Berbers, this form of art is primarily a woman’s prerogative. Its main feature consists in its geometric or figurative décor. And since it has remained almost untouched since the Neolithic, it conveys a high-value worth of being preserved and continued. In Sejnane, this technique uses local clay collected from river beds. It is made of two natural colors. One is mineral (red ochre) and the other is vegetal (a Mediterranean plant called lentisk or Pistacia lentiscus). Traditionally, pottery was made for domestic purposes. But in the hands of the local women it served also as an aesthetic and cultural means of expression. This showed not only in the forms but principally in its decorative motifs in keeping with an ancestral taste for geometrical abstraction. The text attempts to define the inspiration behind as well as the hidden message carried out by an array of signs. But the analysis also considers some of the new trends that have emerged since roughly the middle of the 20th century. Modernity, or sometimes new requests, has led to adding two new forms of pottery: figurines and animals. Although this may be seen as a danger for the traditional form, it also brings forward the assertiveness of the women in regard to both their ancestral Berber culture and their modernity in a country that liberated the role of women. We note that this tradition already existed during the Libyco-punic period of Carthage at the time of the goddess Tanit period. As for the animals, it has a certain anthropological value, as it relays the human world to their perception of animals. Both new artistic additions continue to use decorative signs.

https://www.academia.edu/98795165/La_Poterie_modelée_de_Sejnane_