Hanouts (also: Haouenet) are weaving workshops that can be found all across the Djerba island, often built are semi-buried, to regulate humidity and temperature. Many of them can be by their triangular pediments above the entrance doors. These traditional structures often feature large rooms with vaulted ceilings, designed to accommodate all, the wool processing and the weaving. Historically, there were hundreds of these workshops: around 428 in 1873, though numbers declined over the 20th century.
Wool from Djerba has been famous beyond the country’s borders since the Middle Ages. Traders from Europe and the Middle East came to buy wool.
One notable example is the Hanout el-Aouina workshop in Houmt Souk, an 18th-century wool weaving workshop that is now recognized for its historical. Its name Hanout el-Aouina in Tunisian Arabic means “the plum workshop,” suggesting the presence of a prominent plum tree in the immediate vicinity in former times. In 1975, the abbondoned workshop in Houmt Souk served as a location for the “Star Wars” film series (Episode IV).
In 2017, during the first SEE DJERBA edition, Liubov Moskina developed a site-specific laser-intervention for an abbandoned hanout in Houmt Souk.
HANOUT Sessions
