… We were in a place where the sky was an orange and where we could touch the milky way simply by stretching out our arms.

January 2025 artist residency Tissardmine, Rissani, Morocco.

I was lucky enough to spend a whole month in a dazzling part of the Sahara. In south-eastern Morocco, seven kilometres from the golden-orange dune landscape of Erg Chebbi.

I was a guest of Karen Hadfield at Café Tissardmine, together with a group of other writers and artists.

… At night we would lie under two heavy woollen blankets that brought us a deep, dense sleep and intense physical dreams.

We practised techniques on how best to place our feet in sand where you cannot get a grip, sand dunes so steep that they make you move as if you were on an escalator going down when we wanted to go up…

… We were there where sand, cumin and distance carry the same image. Because here our senses behave like dance movements; they stretch to the extreme, gracefully, slenderly and strongly, and they circle smoothly in all possible directions. Each sense bends to the other, the connections flow in complete synesthesia.

So I smelled the colour of the sky, I listened to the sound of cinnamon and felt the embrace of the distance on my skin.

It was intense and enclosed.

It was golden.

First and foremost, many thanks to Karen Hadfield for your hospitality and taking such good care of us. Thank you!