Fille de Anzar (6) (2023) Sculpture by Khalid Assallami

Daughter of Anzar (lord of water or god of rain among the Amazighs) is a work inspired by the rite of Anzar and his bride and which deals with the subject of water stress that we experience today.

In the past, the peoples of North Africa lived to the rhythm of the seasons.
When drought sets in, the rains are slow and the water sources are exhausted; the women of the village make a doll (fiancée de Anzar) from a ladle, scraps of fabric and two wooden spoons which symbolize the two hands which will receive the long-awaited water and preserve it.
Accompanying children, the women have the doll exhibited and solicit Anzar with songs, to provoke its fertilizing power. A sort of nuptial ceremony, a rite which enters into sympathetic magic and which assimilates rain to seed.

Here is a narrated version of this myth:

"That was when the gods had human faces.
Anzar was the god of rain.
One day, Anzar saw at the edge of a river, a young girl
who bathed as she came into the world. Anzar was dazzled
by so much beauty, once the beauty saw him, she
was leaking.
So one day, Anzar closed the way and said:
“Belle, come with me, I will fill you. »
The confused girl:
“Lord, but what will men say? Heaven is not my home. »
Heartbroken, Anzar disappeared.
The next day all the springs and rivers
withered.
From all the countries came men and women to pray the
beautiful to accede to the request of the god of water:
“Anzar master of the waters, give us water so that
plants and buds give us fruit, just as beautiful, just as firm. »
Then the girl cried to the sky:
“O Anzar, O Anzar! O thou flower of the meadows! Come take me in your arms! »
At that very moment she saw the master of water under the aspect
with a tremendous flash.
He hugs the young girl to him as he ascends to heaven.
The rivers began to flow again, the whole earth was covered with
greenery and the rainbow appears in the sky."

This work is made of recycled Atlas cedar wood, engraved and painted using ancestral techniques and tools once used in the manufacture of Berber doors.
These motifs and symbols that we always find on everyday objects of the Berbers and that formerly were answered around the Mediterranean basin, make us rock in a numerical language, a language of shapes, colors and silence.

Related themes

Sculpture En BoisArt ContemporainArt SymbolismeTotemSculpture Abstraite