A City, A Time, A Figure

When I arrived in Marrakech in 1996, Bert Flint was already part of the city’s fabric.
People spoke of him then much as they do now, but with more proximity. The stories came through familiar voices. Those who mentioned his name knew him. He belonged to the human landscape of the medina, part of daily life.

From east to west, north to south, the medina felt like one continuous neighbourhood..
Bleach sellers traded for stale bread or small coins. The silence of the medina was filled with footsteps, voices rising and fading, and the rhythm of hands at work.

Artisans filled every corner. Each part of the city had its own smell. You could walk for hours without getting lost, guided by a thousand sensory cues.

We travelled often. We came back. We found treasures. But more than anything, we held on to the belief that the walls of the medina held even more. That certainty fed the imagination. We watched, we dreamed, we projected.

Bert Flint’s Way of Seeing

Bert Flint already belonged to that time, and to the one before. He arrived in Morocco in the 1950s, and by 1957, had chosen Marrakech as home base.

He lived there, taught there, and built a way of seeing

Trained as an art historian, he quickly shifted his attention to rural Moroccan cultures, and then to the deep-rooted connections between the Maghreb, the Sahara, and the Sahel.

He collected with care and intent. Textiles, jewellery, domestic objects, modest forms, daily tools, anything that revealed a way of life held his interest.

Dar Tiskiwin, A Place to Walk Through

His medina house gradually became a place of thought. Dar Tiskiwin was designed as a space to walk through.

The route followed caravan paths, cultural zones, long-standing continuities. Placed together, the objects revealed connections and continuities.

The space stayed on a human scale. You entered as if stepping into someone’s home.
We used to go. We’d share the address with friends, then with clients. The place remained intimate, inseparable from the man who lived there. Even when absent, he felt present.
Marrakech was his base between travels. It was his chosen city, his place to live.

 
An Era Drawing to an End

With the passing of figures like Bert Flint, an era draws to an end.
A way of being in Marrakech disappears, one shaped by slowness, by attention to place, to people, to a culture very different from our own.

It required time, and belonged to those who could stay. Discovering Morocco has always been a matter of duration.

That way of being moved on, transformed, and gave way to other impulses, through new gestures, new forms of attention and stories.

A young generation is stepping in. It claims its own culture, moves between here and elsewhere, looks outward, and returns. This position, both local and open to the world, gives rise to new forms, new narratives, and offers a contemporary way into today’s Morocco.

The book published by the Fondation Jardin Majorelle, dedicated to Bert Flint’s collection, offers a sense of the scope and coherence of his work.

It continues what the house already told, room by room.

We hope Dar Tiskiwin will open its doors again soon.