One more thing to blog about in reference to  my Sahara adventure: the carpet that is a work of art. I’d seen work done by We Make Carpets before in Eindhoven during the 2011 Glow festival. The carpet laid out then was made of glow-in-the-dark materials. As it did not glow in the dark on the evening I was there, I was less than impressed. Their carpet for the Taragalte festival was made out of plastic bottles, scavenged from the local dump and the area around M’hamid and filled with sand to weigh them down.

I sort of like the work they do – it’s crazy to spend weeks and weeks organising plastic forks and spoons or bandages or candybars into tapestry. Wasn’t so sure about the carpet in the desert, though. Not that it wasn’t pretty, nor did it lack meaning for it is indeed a shame to find plastic everywhere. It just did not have magic, or fun. Maybe it was the unforgiving light – seeing it in twilight might be a completely different experience. Also I found it a slightly arrogant gesture – wondered what the people of M’Hamid think of a thing like this. Do they feel mocked?