Fatima-Zohra Ait El Maâti is an architecture graduate, currently active as an art consultant and lecturer in Urban & Spatial Sociology. Navigating between Belgium and Morocco, she has lent her enquiring lens to academic and cultural institutions, while grounding her practice in close relationships with local communities. Through art, her work explores how (public) space is imagined, occupied, and transformed, with a particular focus on Amazigh women’s right to self-determination within those spaces.
Tayri was initially born in 2023, from a collaboration with Amazigh craftswomen from Fatima-Zohra's native region of Iguerouane, Meknes. Previously working through middle men, the craftswomen were exploited into drawing only 4% of the product selling prices. Through tayri the Western export process was reimagined, increasing that share to 30% of the selling price (around 80% of total profit) thus challenging exploitative cooperative models.
Today, tayri has collaborations with independent craftswomen and men in Iguerouane, Azrou, M'Rirt, Imlchil, Oued Zem, Khenifra, Ourika and Fes. By investing in the materials before the production phase, our aim is to sustainably uphold the craft of Atlas women, and enable artisans to work independently of debt, intermediaries, and financial urgency. Our ambition is to create the conditions for craftsmanship to flourish on its own terms, where quality, time, and self-determination come before survival.
This, to make high-quality Moroccan craft resourceful not only for the final user, but mostly for the initial suppliers.
Because liberation can be a party ♥
tayri.