JAX Exchange - Winter 2025 - Magazine - Page 74
t h e h e a l i ng no t e s o f
WITH MOHAMMED
H A M D O U N I , Anthropologist
and Director of the Takafes Art
Center, uncovering the ancient
link between music and the quiet
art of healing.
by Essentialist Editors
Fez
In the medina of Fez, music drifts through courtyards and down narrow
alleys, a part of daily life rather than a performance. For centuries,
these sounds have soothed the anxious, marked celebrations, and
reminded people of something larger than themselves.
Mohammed Hamdouni has spent his career listening closely. An
anthropologist, curator, and Director of the Takafes Art Center,
he studies how Morocco’s Andalusian musical traditions once
served as therapy—long before the concept had a name. His work
bridges archives and alleyways, tracing how rhythm, geometry, and
craftsmanship all speak the same language of harmony.
Spend an afternoon with him and you begin at the world’s oldest
psychiatric hospital, where music was prescribed as treatment. The
visit unfolds into a quiet conversation on how Fez’s architecture and
soundscapes mirror each other—the repetition of arches, the cadence
of chants, the geometry of healing.
Later, over mint tea on a 15th-century terrace, musicians tune their
instruments for an intimate Andalusian performance. Notes rise
and fall with the call to prayer. The evening turns contemplative,
a reminder that art here was never ornamental; it was a way to
balance the self.
Mohammed’s approach extends beyond music—to zellige tilework,
copper etching, and the handmade forms that give Fez its rhythm.
Each pattern, he says, is a kind of score: a repetition that calms the
mind and carries the past into the present.
74
|
WINTER 2025
