Potters compete with Asian mass production
(29 May 2017) LEADIN
Potters in the Safi area of Morocco are trying to maintain their traditional style against competition from mass produced goods from Asia.
They are taking advantage of new technology and adding to hundreds of years of local creativity.
STORYLINE
Ahmed Serghini opens the large double doors to his pottery shop in Safi.
The Moroccan city is nationally and internationally renowned for its ceramics.
It has the advantage of an abundance of quality raw materials and it became a place of significant cultural heritage.
Serghini is among a number of well-known potters to have inherited eight generations of pottery skills.
I started practicing pottery with my father. For him it was a source of income, but for me it was an art and creativity, he explains.
My aim from the beginning was to develop this craft, because the pottery history of Safi is full of achievements and this craft deserves to be more developed.
Serghini is a pioneer in innovative pottery, expanding on old methods while preserving a traditional touch.
After working for his family's workshop he opened his own aged 22.
He now owns two large workshops with 20 employees as well as a string of shops.
The clay of Safi is very calcareous and rich in iron oxide, which creates a texture which gives metallic reflections to the pottery,
The potters put the clay in water and leave it for 24 hours to become a paste. They then put the paste in the sun and divide it into slabs.
They leave the slabs in a humid room for 10 days, then put it through a machine which crushes it and lets the air bubbles escape.
Then it is ready to be moulded into pottery, decorated, enamelled and fired.
Serghini is keen to perfect all the techniques of pottery production in order to satisfy customers from all over the world. He currently sells his pottery in Morocco as well as other countries including France, the USA and Canada.
I organised many fairs in Europe where I exhibited a new collection of pottery every year, he says.
I worked always to renew my collection, to not stagnate and to satisfy all the customers. And all that with keeping our authentic character.
But while Serghini strives to be original he says he's constantly struggling with competition from other manufacturers, particularly from Asia, copying his designs then offering them at lower prices. Because of this he says he has had to reduce his employees from 100 in 2003 to just 20 today.
The crisis has been felt by potters across Safi. There are several sites of pottery production in the area, but the main ones are located in two quarters of the city: the Potters Hill and the Chaaba valley.
The Potters Hill is one of the oldest quarters of the city and its workshops are well equipped. But in the Chaaba Valley, where there are 100 workshop potters, the remote location on the edge of the valley makes business difficult and the old, traditional ovens are not always efficient.
But now a new programme will gather the Chaaba potters in a craft zone next to the clay quarries. This area will be fitted with new equipment, including 100 gas ovens. The potters be able to carry out their craft in the new workshop in March 2018.
Legriaa Hassan is a member of the Crafts Chamber in Safi and says the programme is an important step to helping local potters work more efficiently.
Despite the challenges Moroccan potters have faced from mass produced goods, they say there will always be a vast difference between what a potter's hand can make compared to a machine.
But that won't stop them from taking advantage of new technology and combining it with the craftsmanship of their ancestors.
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روعة خزف أسفي Poterie de Safi
DAR BOUAZZA.متحف الخزف باسفي
MUSEE DE LA POTERIE A SAFI ;Visite au Musée National de la Céramique à Safi Maroc
Exposition «Céramique de Safi. Entre histoire et gestes ancestraux»
La Fondation Attijariwafa bank propose, du 19 avril au 28 septembre 2018 à l’espace d'art Actua, une exposition portant sur la céramique de Safi autour de la collection Guerraoui-Laoufir, patiemment assemblée depuis cinquante ans. Dan une déclaration à «MatinTV», Ghita Triki, responsable du pôle Art & Culture de la Fondation Attijariwafa bank, souligne l’importance de cet évènement lancé sous le signe : «Céramique de Safi. Entre histoire et gestes ancestraux».
Hicham ZIHAD - Poomsae Keumgang
Master Hicham ZIHAD the president of Arriyad Safi of Taekwondo , performing the 10th Poomsae Keumgang .
- Place : National Museum of Ceramics , Safi City / Morocco .
Musée de la céramique - île Moya Second Life
visite du Musée et de l'atelier de céramique dans le vieux village de Moya -le musée présente les céramiques réalisées par Moya dans les ateliers italiens d'Albisola et Sesto Fiorentino. On peut accéder à ce musée par l'intérieur du musée d'art moderne ou par la route du bord de mer.
The ceramic Museum - This museum presents on three floors the ceramics created by Moya in Italy (Albisola and Sesto Fiorentino).
Morocco Trip:Pottery Madness
Ali GAZOULI - Taegeuk 7 Jang
Ali GAZOULI member and Champion of Arriyad Safi of Taekwondo Association , is performing Poomsae Taegeuk 7 Jang near to National Museum of Ceramics , Safi City ...
Ateliers, Cité de la céramique
This is right outside Paris, France, in Sèvres. I visited the huge ceramics museum on the first Sunday of a month, so got into all the permanent collections for free. I really recommend it, and this might even be a place for younger people, such as children and teens, but I am not an expert on that. I just found it very engaging.
You can get here, for example, on the T2 tramway, and the stop is named for the museum.
The ateliers were closed on this Sunday, as was most of Sèvres, really, but this is a huge factory and workshop complex where they are actively hiring apprentices and where the public can take a variety of educational workshops.
sevresciteceramique.fr
These huge, old fashioned windows in this majestic, old building were somewhat impeded but I was able to slip my camera outside, then show you a bit of some of the displays. A lot of the history of ceramics is shown and explained here.
If you come over here from Paris on the tramway or bus via métro on a free Sunday first day of the month, just take a bottle of water and a little snack. You can actually walk back into Paris from here over a bridge over the Seine, or take a bus. There, you will certainly find some refreshment options. It should be noted that Paris and its environs tend to close on Sundays, however. Tourists take note -- buy the necessary on Saturday before, and go to a park for a picnic! It's glorious, a wonderful day of downtime. It can be lonely and frustrating if you are on your own, however, and are unprepared. Get a corkscrew, some wine, go to a traiteur for prepared foods, they keep a bit, hee hee hee!!!!
At the end of this clip is an object my spouse loved a great deal, and I was suprised, because he doesn't care much for my love for glass, porcelain, etc. Over the years I have enjoyed buying quality glass in Venice, Italy for our light fixtures, and I use fine china and good silverware often. He loved the German bouquet (flower) holder in a fan shape. With many little bouquets in it, color-coordinated or not, it could be very pretty indeed.
Paris, and all of France, really, has so much to offer.
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Boulogne-sur-Mer is a city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the Côte d'Opale, a tourist coast on the English Channel, and is the most-visited location in its region after the Lille conurbation. Boulogne is its department's second-largest city after Calais, and the 59th largest in France. It is also the country's largest fishing port, specialising in herring.
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Safavid dynasty | Wikipedia audio article
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Safavid dynasty
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SUMMARY
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The Safavid dynasty (; Persian: دودمان صفوی Dudmān e Safavi) was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran, often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history. The Safavid shahs ruled over one of the Gunpowder Empires. They ruled one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Iran, and established the Twelver school of Shia Islam as the official religion of the empire, marking one of the most important turning points in Muslim history.
The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safaviyya Sufi order, which was established in the city of Ardabil in the Azerbaijan region. It was of mixed ancestry (Kurdish and Azerbaijani, which included intermarriages with Georgian, Circassian, and Pontic Greek dignitaries). From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over parts of Greater Iran and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming the first native dynasty since the Sasanian Empire to establish a national state officially known as Iran.The Safavids ruled from 1501 to 1722 (experiencing a brief restoration from 1729 to 1736) and, at their height, they controlled all of modern Iran, Azerbaijan Republic, Bahrain, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Despite their demise in 1736, the legacy that they left behind was the revival of Persia as an economic stronghold between East and West, the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon checks and balances, their architectural innovations and their patronage for fine arts. The Safavids have also left their mark down to the present era by spreading Shi'a Islam in Iran, as well as major parts of the Caucasus, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia.