About
Hello. I’m Fadhel. As a queer person with roots in both Sweden and Tunisia, I am intrigued by identity and finding that certain place of longing through my work. Navigating between theory and practice, I explore storytelling through tactility in the hope to reach the core of a subject, to fully understand a medium or narrative.
Being trained as a hand weaver, I am driven by discovering the possibilities of traditional material processes and how to translate them visually to create new meanings and concepts. Through in-depth research studies, I aim to investigate, question and develop these notions through techniques that can express contemporary narratives and functions.
Photos by Molly Overstall Khan
In Thoughts, Together (2022-2023)
Funded by The National Swedish Handicraft Council
In Thoughts, Together serves as the continuation of the project To Be and To Become, exploring the collective memory surrounding the heritage of the Hedared basket. Through a series of conversations with members of the Hedared Village Association, we together unveiled past roots, present-day realities, and future legacies of the village – explored craftsmanship, social progression, and personal destinies – all interconnected via the Hedared basket.
What does the collective remembrance of a local craft heritage look like? Do memories differ from family to family? Person to person? How does such a heritage inform the current self-image of a rural area?
Through this trust-led exchange, my aim was to act as an interpreter, observing and synthesising the conversations. The texts, documents, photographs, and transcripts gathered from each member, comprise a simple collection of stories. Each narrative was translated into imagery, linked to village artefacts, or integrated into my own woven work.
The woven outcomes were presented in the exhibit In Thoughts, Together, hosted by the Craft Association of Southern Sweden (2023), and has since been shown at the Textile Museum of Sweden and MalmöVÄV
The complete body of research will be found as part of the upcoming publication:
The
In Thoughts, Together: research (2022)
Funded by The National Swedish Handicraft Council
In the initial stages of my Hedared basket-related research, I had immersed myself in various historical sources to understand the Hedared basket fully: poring over books, publications, historical records, and visiting archives and even recreations of historical housing. Each encounter with historical data was enriched by personal anecdotes from family members, providing nuanced insights into both the Hedared basket’s factual history and the culture, the social conditions, that had birthed it.
I had encountered the broader historical narrative of the village and its region, yet, if I had learnt anything during this process of understanding: it is that there’s a depth to knowing that transcends mere facts — it is the heartfelt that brings nuance to things, and simply extends beyond the factual. In my strive for comprehending the complexities of my subject, my exploration needed to extend beyond my immediate family connections to encompass the broader Hedared community and their histories. I needed to listen to voices that were yet unfamiliar, take in the heritage and lived experiences from those who expressed themselves as invested in the basket as myself. To lead a continued exploration with the heartfelt.
Enter the second phase of the research: In Thoughts, Together.
It was through a series of conversations with members of the Hedared Village Association, that we together unveiled past roots, present-day realities, and future legacies of the village: explored craftsmanship, social progression, and personal destinies – all interconnected via the Hedared basket. The aim was to allow each interaction to steer the course of the research, starting with a common set of questions for each participant, then letting the conversation evolve organically, enabling participants to share what they deemed relevant. This approach introduced new insights, locales, and historical individuals connected to the village, but also allowed recurring themes, stemming from the conversations, to naturally appear.
What does the collective memory of a local craft heritage look like? Do memories differ from family to family? Person to person? How does such a heritage inform the current self-image of a rural area? How do you document and keep such a memory alive beyond the feeling of nostalgia?
The texts, documents, photographs, and transcripts gathered during the course of this specific research comprise a simple collection of stories. The synthesised conversations, interactions and observations will be presented as part of the upcoming publication:
The
The research serves as a series of testaments, relating to the larger theme of this upcoming book. Beyond the upcoming publication, this body of research would serve as the subject for my woven work – initially presented in the exhibition In Thoughts, Together – hosted by the Craft Association of Southern Sweden (2023).
The woven outcomes has since been shown at the Textile Museum of Sweden and MalmöVÄV
In Thoughts, Together: exhibition (2023)
9 Sept — 18 Nov The Craft Association of Southern Sweden
Photos by Alexis Rodriguez Cancino
In Thoughts, Together: essay + part lecture, part talk (2023)
in thoughts, together: craft, tradition, cosmopolite life
part lecture, part talk together with dutch publisher freek lomme
MADE POSSIBLE BY IASPIS, HEMSLÖJDEN I SKÅNE, STADEN MALMÖS HEMSLÖJDSFÖRENING, FD/C
FORM/DESIGN CENTER
14 SEPTEMBER 2023
The showcase of the project In Thoughts, Together at The Craft Association of Southern Sweden showcases the continuation of the research on the Hedared basket: focusing on its collective remembrance. Through a series of conversations with members of the Hedared Village Assosciation, we explored craftsmanship, social progression, and personal destinies. We unveiled past roots, present-day realities, and future legacies — all interconnected via the craft heritage of the Hedared basket.
What does the collective remembrance of a local craft heritage look like? Do memories differ from family to family? Person to person? How does such a heritage inform the current self-image of a rural area?
For me, this is a personal journey. I have for the past two years researched the Hedared basket. My great-grandfather Lennart Pettersson was an artisan known as ‘the last basketmaker from Risa’. Risa is a small community outside of the village of Hedared. Born in 1901 during the industrialisation and democratisation of Sweden, Lennart learned and related to his craft out of necessity, as he belonged to a family of impoverished farmers. Making was not a choice.
I was born in the same region, the Seven Districts, nearly a century later in the early 1990s. I'm a digital native raised during the age of information. Growing up I was predominately culturally versed in a western, heteronormative context with Swedish as my first language, despite my shared Swedish and North African heritage, and queer identity. I do not speak Arabic, yet my own name originates from it. The inherent sense of inbetweenship of identities created by these multiple points of views; unable to speak Arabic whilst adhering to euro-centric cultural norms, often lead to friction within myself, in not being seen to belong to one certain social context. This longing for acceptance and togetherness makes itself especially known in my lack of speaking the language in which my own name is spoken. Arabic is a familiar and intimate yet foreign tongue.
Having this innate desire to communicate my existence within this kaleidoscope of identities to the outside world has led me to seek outlets which would allow for self-expression beyond the spoken. My craft is driven by a need to reach the core of a subject. To fully understand an object, a medium or a narrative. Reflect, contemplate, discuss and challenge past notions to make way for new perspectives. Breaking with tradition to create spaces for my own multitude of cultural perspectives to co-exist within. This project is a patchwork of these various moving parts, coming together to form a whole through the Hedared basket. Wishing to communicate beyond cultural barriers, the research behind the basket has led me to discover the universal language of craft. A language that, for myself, infiltrates contemporary culture, heritage and identity.
Having lived in London for the past decade, I'm intrigued by how the language of craft, originating from the local realm of Hedared, influences our broader culture. With In Thoughts, Together, my ambition has been to focus on the collective rather than solely exploring my own ideas about my practice in relation to my great-grandfather’s. Through collaboration, I aimed to become an interpreter, observing and synthesising the conversations held with members of the Hedared Village Association, to understand the basket as a community-bearing object.
When translating this research into woven outputs, it allowed me to discover theory: how writing can inform a making based practice and vice versa; open up new perspectives and connect my own ethos with that of already established, and globally relevant ideas on craft. Its universal values of unity, generational knowledge and self-sufficiency became common denominators through work with the Hedared Village Association. Creating space for common understanding.
Naturally resulting in this research becoming part of the ongoing book project, The Basket: Notes on Craft, Tradition, Cosmopolite Life (working title). Summarising the themes explored throughout. Yet, nothing exists in a vacuum.
My own thoughts and work connect with other realities and established methods of addressing similar issues:
What resonates about a local craft heritage in a global cultural context? Do the values of rural traditions hold significance in contemporary culture?
Are there parallels to be drawn or similarities to be found?
Photos by Molly Overstall Khan, Daniel Engvall