Unreal Carpet

“She Definitely Has No Fear”

An anachronic conversation between Jan, Ismāʿīl and a group of Amazigh women
Text by Pau Catà

She Definitely Has No Fear is a conceptual project developed within The Unreal Carpet, initiated by Embroiderers of Actuality at KE’CH Collective during the 6th Marrakech Biennale. The project starts from a 17th-century engraving by Jan Luyken depicting Morocco under the rule of Ismāʿīl ibn Sharīf, using this historical artifact as a tool to question how power, gender, and cultural identities have been visually constructed and transmitted over time.

The work proposes an anachronic and fictional dialogue between three symbolic agents: the European engraver, the sovereign figure of authority, and a collective of Amazigh women. Through this encounter, the project dislocates historical imagery from its original context and reactivates it within contemporary practices of collective making, particularly carpet weaving.

At its core, The Unreal Carpet explores the relationship between craft and political agency, positioning weaving as both a cultural practice and a form of embodied resistance. The slow, repetitive, and collective gesture of weaving becomes a counter-narrative to dominant historical representations, transforming an image shaped by colonial imagination into a space of reappropriation and empowerment.

Rejecting binary oppositions and confrontational rhetoric, the project advances a form of micro-feminism grounded in patience, empathy, and resilience. It investigates how fictional constructions of the past continue to shape the present, and how imagined futures can emerge through the reactivation of marginalized knowledge and women’s voices.

By layering history, fiction, and collective labor, She Definitely Has No Fear invites a rethinking of authorship, representation, and equality—suggesting that transformation can occur not through domination, but through shared gestures, sustained attention, and the quiet strength of making together.