Ateliers Zelij
Design by Samir Mazer
SAMIR MAZER
The artistic approach
“Preservation is not enough for a culture to stay alive, it must also be re-invented”
Samir Mazer, born in 1966 in Morocco, is a Franco-Moroccan sculptor and designer based between Toulouse & Fes. Working in ceramics for three decades, he has made the material his means of expression.
He undertook a quest, digging, digging, shaping this material that animates him; the traditional Moroccan zellige. In a desire to extend the history of this millenary art, he demands it with a deeply sensitive eye and at different scales. While zellige is a traditional art, Samir Mazer has a new sense of sensibility.
For more than 20 years, through the brand Ateliers Zelij he has co-ownedFounded, he puts his artist and surface designer’s gaze at the service of interior architects to create surface coverings to dress and inhabit space.
It is through a great openness of mind that he makes the deep personality of the zellige, full of nuances, vibrations, diversity and sometimes accidents, come back to life, This is a sign of our fragility.
From the R&D workshop, he now develops unique pieces or works in situ to echo the zellige with a place, space or moment.
THE R&D STUDIO
Cultivate our difference and constantly challenge our creativity!
Our confidential Research & Development studio is hidden in the very center of Toulouse and directed by Samir Mazer.
Drawings, collages, folds or even casts are all ways to study shapes, dissect them, deform them or even modulate them like notes on music paper. The nuances offered by zelliges are a melting pot for composing our chromatic universes and the workshop is a real playground where hundreds of trials in the form of a puzzle wait patiently in lockers.
An extraordinary experimental theater, the workshop sees the birth of new collections, unique pieces and collaborations ass Shimenawa Collection, result of a deep and exciting dialogue with creative agency Ombre, co-founded by Victor Fleury Ponsin & Jean Michel Bourillot.
It keeps also many other secrets.. contact us to talk about your project and imagine together your bespoke piece.
Unique art work
An ode to contemplation
With a resolutely contemporary language, Samir Mazer thus breaks with codes without breaking with his culture and the traditional art work of zellige. On the contrary, it is a plea for freedom, a tribute to his identity and a great respect for the Master Craftsmen of Fes who assist him on these unique art work. Zellige goes beyond its decorative function to become a vector of artistic expression, a call to contemplation. With a sensitive gaze, a breach opens to bring a material beyond its function, its history and its culture.
IN SITU
Today, a new stage is opened, where this noble material is transcended through unique pieces, created in close connection with the intervention space, a real challenge for the viewer.
While the creations of Samir Mazer through the Zelij Workshops are standardized and ordered by decorators without knowing the final destination, Today, he wants to create a connection with space, light and culture.
Each project must be unique, with a personal dimension, making a real bridge between his Moroccan land and the place where the work is hosted. The zellige lives by light, earth and its skin; enamel. Deeply rooted in his native land, Samir Mazer draws inspiration from these landscapes to infuse his creations with a whisper of soul playing on the brightness and internal movement of the earth. With great humility, he does not create but interprets his environment using this living matter.
The monumental work installed in 2024 on the 22nd floor of the Royal Mansour in Casablanca entitled “L’Envol” attests to this approach. A repetition of 3 triangles symbolizes the architecture of the city, the muted hues recall the intoxicating perfumes of its medina, the composition evokes the renaissance of this iconic hotel.