March 2024

International Women’s Day, preceded by International Women’s Week, are United Nations (UN) recognized days of importance celebrated by civil society around the world. It is a period each year when the world celebrates, recognizes, and remembers women and the social, economic, cultural, and political contributions they have made to society. It is also a call to action for accelerating gender equality. International Women’s Week (IWW) is celebrated worldwide from the first Saturday of March, leading to International Women’s Day (IWD).
Liz Keuneke is an artist who works with communities to help them understand their neighborhoods through participatory embroidery. She has carried out projects in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Ibiza, Amsterdam, Barcelona, New York and more.
Large hand-embroidered maps of areas are created and then taken to the communities for them to embellish with stitches via a series of questions related to the relationships they have with their environment.
SAMAA, in collaboration with Culture Vultures, a Sefrou-based arts and culture organization, is honored to welcome Liz and the large cloth map of Sefrous old city she has embroidered, to work with communities over several public and social interventions. This project will bring together the strong traditions of Sefrouian women’s button-making with the mapping of the Sefrou medina as psycho-geographic art, a fusion of psychological experiences and emotions within a geographical location. To date, multidisciplinary artist Liz Kueneke has visited the Sefrou/Fez, engaged with the local people, and created the hand-embroidered map. Interventions are programmed in a Women’s Center, Crafts and Training Centers and Sefrou Medina streets during the week of March 4th – 10th, 2024
The questions will be answered by community members by stitching relevant colored textile buttons onto the cloth map. The large collaborative textile piece has kindly been offered on loan by that artist to SAMA and SMM. From March 12th onwards, visit SAMAs Hub to view this piece.


