Maja Bolier

Aicha evades me,
she seems to be a being that can not be brought into my vision
she dances on the periphery
her colors; white and black mixed
happiness and sadness
egality
The spirits turn the weakness into strength
they make Tangier mine again
and stop the ink stain spreading across my heart
the world weightlessly moves around me on the walk home
You can not hold on to life,
like you cannot catch the air in your fist
only breathe it through you
Cupping me in her palms, she holds me, Tingis, my love
Aicha is the storm, and the calmness after
the beating heart of the time I step through
no one can hold her shape
All the stories I am told are different
lost in oral recollection
histories intertwined in diaspora
Migration is an act of courage
From the south of Africa, to the middle, to the north
she journeys through minds and landscapes
in the click clack of the qraqeb
the soul of the guembri, it’s camel neck, goat intestines
they sing her name, evoke her into being
The songs speak of freedom,
the shift of chains around ankles
love, respect
we all have beating hearts
our bones are the same
The stories travel through centuries
If you listen, you will hear them, and you must listen more than talk.
They say Gnawi is the man who does not understand his own language
We have been brought here to receive sacred news
messengers entrusted with holding truth
The entrance is always scarier than the exit
Lalla Aicha guides us through, and onwards and out
we are moving forward
hearing the voices and noise of peoples and histories behind us
Stories are dreams that become realities
and our stories are intertwined
Aicha is part of me now
momentum
pushing me forward
 

My name is Maja Irene Bolier. I am an Australian/Dutch multidisciplinary artist working with installation, film, spoken word, collage, writing, sound, costume-making, puppetry and performance.
As a socially engaged artist, I work with methods of storytelling and sharing through workshops, and organising events and places of being together otherwise.
I am interested in the stories we forget, the ones we hold on to, the stories we distort, and the stories that hold us together. In this increasingly polarised landscape, we must create new ways of understanding and being together and find the spaces in which we overlap.
During my time with Darna in Tangier, I was taken on a journey through Gnawa culture and dove deep into researching Lalla Aicha, a female entity deeply embedded in Moroccan culture. Through meetings, expeditions, and talking to the people around me, I learned that Lalla Aicha, much like Morocco, isn’t one single thing; she is made of many complex layers. Using the research and interviews I gathered, I created the documentary Searching For Lalla Aicha. It documents my search for this elusive woman, but it is also a love letter to Morocco and the people I met.
Together with the Darna organisation and the beneficiaries, I created a large-scale marionette of Lalla Aicha and gifted her to the city of Tangier. I learned that next to an artist, I am also a researcher, and I research by throwing myself into the world.

The project concludes a three-month artisteducator residency in Tangier, carried out within the framework of the International Master Artisteducator (iMAE) program at ArtEZ University of the Arts, in collaboration with the Darna Association (Tangier), and supported by the educational, research, and dissemination activities of the UNESCO Chair’s Centre for Arts and Learning (UCAL).