Why and How the Country Changed Colour
This lecture draws on Elizabeth’s time in Morocco in visits spanning more than 25 years. The lecture focuses particularly on the stories behind the blue pigment used for the fishing boats and doorways of photogenic Essaouira on the Moroccan coast, and the Majorelle Blue developed and patented by French artist Jacques Majorelle in Marrakech in the 1920s. The story of Morocco’s blues takes us from Berber veils to Yves Saint-Laurent who restored Majorelle’s Marrakech garden, via Modernist Orientalist art and a protected mollusk...
How to book this event:
Guests are welcome in person for £7 at DORFORD CENTRE. Guests wishing to book a zoom link (£7) should do so via Ticket Source, found by clicking this link
THE ARTS SOCIETY ACCREDITED LECTURER
Ms Elizabeth Gowing
Studied at Magdalen College Oxford before training as a teacher and working in Lambeth, Hackney and Islington. Moved to Kosovo in 2006 and there worked with the Ethnological Museum in Prishtina and co-founded ‘The Ideas Partnership’, a charity working on education and cultural heritage projects. Speaks fluent Albanian and has translated two books (the unauthorised biography of Yugoslavia’s longest-held political prisoner, Adem Demaci, and the memoirs of one of the leaders of the 1912 uprising). Also the author of four books about Kosovo – Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo (2011), Edith and I; on the trail of an Edwardian traveller in Kosovo (2013); The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife; an unlikely friendship in Kosovo (2015) and The Silver Thread; a journey through Balkan craftmanship (2017). Regular contributor to Radio 4 (Saturday Live, Excess Baggage, From Our Own Correspondent) and the BBC World Service. Member of the advisory board of GuideKS, the NGO for Kosovan tour guides, and of the board of Faktoje, the Albanian fact-checking organisation.
OTHER EVENTS
Cerne Abbas Village Hall
STUDY DAY

