SACRED SKIN
"Sacred Skin" (2023) is an installation by kaersenhout in collaboration with writer Rashid Novaire. This work examines the racist interpretations of the biblical story of and its impact on Black people in the Maghreb, often referred to as ‘Haratin.’ Through this installation, they explore the history of ostracization faced by Black and address the narrative of slavery, race, and Islam in Morocco, highlighting how the curse of Ham has been misused to justify subjugation and the Transatlantic slave trade.
SACRED SKIN
All at once I know the rain again
An image in black and white and grey
You, who in that light looked at the fluttering of a restless sigh
in the palm of your hand All at once I know the rain again
In which you found, your black skin, a sanctuary 'Haratin', they call you, a word,
which I may sometimes look beyond
And where, in recurrent language
I met a shadow for which I long
You told me – we are sons of Cham,
and were white until
rain made the inky typeface run and we preserved the holy book
on our skin
At once I know the rain again The trusted unknown
where you and I
fused into an entity indivisible Your black skin
Your sacred skin
'Haratin', they call you
My longing for silence evokes
With amper-imagined insistence
A dumb language, beyond sound
That must keep its distance
A distance from the time when your skin your black skin
your sacred skin
is like a blind spot
a sanctuary trampled underfoot
Mirror with distorted image
A shadow of my features
My skin
My sacred skin
A role-play
game where time remained
Like the route of a gourd
Transported to a coast untamed
'Haratin', I tread the backroads of language Past places
where light still burns
I am your story
Even before I come ashore
But last night, once more at the coast older than the waiting
A surge to which I resign myself
drift away in contemplating
'Haratin', they call you,
a word,
I tread those tracks
it is as if the earth has saved the scars of our skin
Rashid Novaire