Handmade in Algeria
Kabyle Ceramic Deep Plate · Hand-Painted · Amazigh Symbols
Large deep plate wheel-thrown and hand-painted in Algiers by ceramicist Zahra Bacha. This piece carries a full vocabulary of Amazigh symbols rendered in vibrant colours over an ivory background with a warm terracotta rim – lozenge and seeds for fertility, the eye against misfortune, the diamond for the union of opposites. Entirely glazed, it is a functional serving piece, at once ancient and entirely contemporary.
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The Craft. Wheel-thrown on a traditional potter's wheel and hand-painted before firing, this plate is a contemporary reinterpretation of a Kabyle design language that has been in continuous use for centuries. Painted over an off-white glaze ground with a warm terracotta rim, its surface carries the full range of Amazigh symbolic vocabulary: the lozenge and seed represent feminine and masculine fertility; the eye offers protection against misfortune; the diamond symbolises the union of opposites. Zahra Bacha fires her pieces two to three times, using both electric and wood-fired kilns, producing the depth of colour and surface quality characteristic of her work.
The Heritage. The Kabyle people, indigenous to the mountainous regions east of Algiers, have maintained a strong Amazigh identity across centuries of change. Amazigh - meaning 'free people' - speaks to a culture with deep pre-Islamic roots, and Kabyle women have long been the custodians of its ceramic tradition, producing earthenware for both domestic use and ritual occasions. Geometric symbols were passed from mother to daughter, each vessel particularised by the tradition of the maker's own tribe or village. By the late twentieth century the craft had begun to fade, but a generation of contemporary ceramicists, working between ancestral and modern, has brought it back into the world.
Maker. Born in Kabylie, Zahra Bacha came to pottery after a career in teaching, drawn to the craft by the example of her sister, the ceramicist Ouiza Bacha. Where Ouiza spent her working life advocating for the preservation of Kabyle pottery and its symbolic heritage, Zahra continues that work from her atelier in Algiers, revisiting traditional forms and motifs to create vessels that are at once rooted and contemporary. She fires each piece two to three times, moving between electric and wood-fired kilns to achieve the depth of colour and surface quality that defines her work.
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