att korga
Film still from Slöjd från Sjuhärad: Korgslöjd i Hedared, 1978.
Full image credit: Jansson, I. (1978) Slöjd från Sjuhärad: Korgslöjd i Hedared. Borås: De sju häradernas hemslöjdsförening/Slöjd i Väst/Kulturförvaltningen VGR.
Att korga (‘to basket’) is a saying found in the Swedish village of Hedared, referring to the act of making the enigmatic Hedared basket.
The crafting process offers a set of unshakeable principles. For example, weaving a piece of textile requires a surrender to a tactile and regimented process, and if the ‘weaving rules’ are neglected, the making process fails. Basket weaving is a type of weaving made without a loom, yet a basket is made through a similar process of rigour and discipline.
The site-specific making of the Hedared basket demonstrates the inherent qualities of craft; how an absolute process can inform identity, represent lineage, and foster a sense of community – all at the same time. It also exemplifies the crafting process as a relational practice: bridging local knowledges with other site-specific material practices, histories, cultures, disciplines, or ways of thinking.
Att korga functions as a remnant of a historical self-governance, continuing to enable knowledge-sharing and knowledge-building in the present. With layers of care and rootedness, att korga and its ‘basketing rules’ offer a glimpse into understanding the crafting process as a language beyond words: an act that articulates the specific knowledges held in the body, where the lived and unspoken take physical form.
Bio
As a queer person with roots in both Sweden and Tunisia, Mourali is intrigued by questions of identity and the search for particular places of longing through his work. Navigating between theory and practice, he explores storytelling through tactility in order to reach the core of a subject, to fully understand the narratives held within technique and tradition. Using weaving as a method to express contemporary experiences through inherited forms of knowledge, craft becomes a tool for reimagining established ideas on history, community and self.
The last basket makers from Risa: crafting a plural kinship along tradition (Set Margins’, 2025) is Mourali’s first book. His woven work has been exhibited and shared at the Textile Museum of Sweden, Rian Designmuseum, the National Association of Swedish Handicraft Societies, Form/Design Center, HDK-Valand, Jan van Eyck Academie, Nordiska museet and Europe House Westminster.
Institution(ing)s is a medium-scale collaboration project co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.