Hans Hamid: the embroidery as a subversive activity
In this insightful interview, Hans Hamid reflects on his encounter with the Kasbah and the importance of geography in the construction of memory. He emphasises the tangible creative process, whether through photography or embroidery, which is capable of representing the unknown, the stranger.
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Zoé Isle de Beauchaine: Could you introduce your series Kasbah Walking which is the subject of this film?
Hans Hamid Rasmussen: Originally, was the titled Kasbah Walking I, stitching, drawing. This title came up as a suggestion from my tutors Sarat Maharaj which is professor at Malmö Art Academy at the University I Lund. He suggested to think or relate this different way of expressing as mode of being and he encouraged met to seek variation related to states of mind when walking and being in the Kasbah. I come to conclusion after the first travel that drawing with blue ink on paper and hand making hand embroidery with silk on linen was the way I could best express my experiences. The first series became a contemplation on lost relations where the drawing give access to a dissociative state and embroidery to continues state of mind. Painted lines was my way to transform impressions of Mediterranean See which become translated in a more physical form by making of hand embroidery with silk thread on linen. Or another work in this series became painted as circular lines on paper which I related to an oil candle ported bay a hand, the candle lights up the darkness, I think some form of circular energy.
Kasbah Walking II, making photography, stitching and sewing.
This time I wanted to bring a 4x5inch analogue camera as a tool to document the architectural structure of the Kasbah. Maybe this more theoretically information, but I have over year being interested in Kurt Schwitters Merzbau, which is a quite peculiar tree dimensional geometrical constructions including letters from the alphabet colours, different objects and there are hidden rooms inside the work where it is told that he placed organic objects. There is something in with Merzbau that comes in mind when I am studied the architecture in the Kasbah. The citizens seek pragmatic architectural solutions to solve social needs. I think the Kasbah respond to what I experience as a mind map shaped by the quite difficult translation I had to make when we moved from Algeria, Budapest, then finally to Norway as a child.
ZB: In the film you make a parallel between the interconnections of architecture and your own inter-cultural identity.
HH: During my second trip to Algiers, this time together with my brother Karim and my father Boualem Makouf, I met relatives living in the Kasbah. A “kasbah” [JA1] is etymologically understood as a fortress. The form of the street and colours used on the facades are meant to cause disorientation. Any enemies had to split up into thinner lines or smaller groups, which then were easier to attack. Shifting social conditions have formed the city. The steps we walk up and down respond to shifting political and social circumstances. I write “we,” because there are so many people who carry with them past experiences of violence. Well after moving or fleeing to new social and geographical conditions, a large gap exists between an inner memory, or a memory we share with a few, and a collective memory. Memories can be contained in the smell of a flower or in the sight of a familiar bird and the songs it sings. But more important for our living conditions is how we can transport and translate our memories from past into present situations. When walking in the Kasbah, I feel connected to historical time, to periods of long duration like the time of French colonialism, to air strikes and bombings and the National Liberation Front’s (FLN) response to this. I feel the repercussions of the civil war at the end of 1990s, but also of earthquakes that caused damage to buildings and street structures. In a strange way, the present city structure reflects the past of many Algerians. I believe refugees around the world have similar experiences. Walking in the Kasbah weaves together the past and the present, as well as interlinked geographical references.
During the past years, Europeans have intensively dealt with issues related to refugees and immigration, due to the wars in both Afghanistan and Syria. But there are also people seeking for safety and better living conditions who are from elsewhere in Africa are arriving Europe with transit through Libya, Algeria, and Morocco. I will not go into this large topic, with the exception of mentioning that my family also once arrived in Europe as refugees, fleeing from a coup d’état in Algeria in 1965. We rested in Budapest for one year. Then we moved on to Norway, while my father made his way to Paris. For my sister and me, the flight was easier because our mother is Norwegian. This happened in the late 1960s, early 1970s. During that time, Scandinavia was still in a mode of openness. To be more specific, the farmer’s area where I grew up was a rather friendly and peaceful place to arrive at. Still, like most strangers, I have experienced what it means to be alienated both geographically and socially. Even after living in Norway for many years, I still experience and keep within me the knowledge of what is different. The philosopher Paul Ricœur states that, on the one side, what we forget and what we remember is a result of an active cognitive process. But what becomes history and what we share with others results from a shared critical process, which then slowly develops into what becomes a collective memory. Shared memories are constructed in close relation to geography—places in landscape and cities, the names we give places—and also immaterial shared knowledge, such as myths and fairy tales.
[JA1]note: Intentionally lowercase here, because here it is a generic term, not the neighbourhood in Algiers
ZB: Photography is a medium to capture memory and history. And then there is embroidery, and stitching, that allows to bring together disparate elements. There is a strong metaphor here. Kasbah Walking really embodies your journey as you reconcile with your past and reassemble your fragmented identity. It is like a medical procedure. Could you tell us more about the healing power of art?
HH: The Bulgarian French philosopher Julia Kristeva has in her book Black Sun made for me an important analysis of the author Marguerite Duras amongst others. Kristeva point out the possibility for us to understand art as black rays, an activity which allows us human to transform traumatic experiences to something tangible or at least something we can identify as known to us. An encounter with a known stranger. The use of photography allows us to document our surroundings precisely; we can say that it is a convincing rhetorical instrument. Textile on other hand is almost totally on the contrary scale; its slow and unpredictable, it is flexible and physical. I find the contradictions between this two-form expression productive. Photography is insisting state of mind when embroidery is more of a subversive activity.
Interview conducted in June 2025
The photos are taken from the film Hans Hamid:Stitches of My Story
directed in 2022 by Nicolai after Rosenborg
