Textile artist Ikram Maymouni opens the doors to her creative universe through her project Ahba Studio, where the knot ceases to be an everyday gesture and becomes an almost ritual act. From the bracelets she made as a child to spatial and organic installations, her work explores repetition, patience, and the memory held within natural fibers. Through a dialogue between the flexible and the structural — sometimes in collaboration with her partner, Mike — her pieces expand the intimate gesture of thread into an architectural dimension. A conversation about material, time, and presence, and about the natural affinity between her artistic practice and the authentic, fresh spirit of Romualda.
How did you begin in the world of macramé and working with threads? Do you remember what led you to create your first piece?
I learned the basic knots by making the typical little bracelets many of us made as children. I loved going to the kiosk to buy those slightly plastic cords in very bright colors and inventing new combinations.
It was something very intuitive, very free. I didn’t think of it as something artistic — I simply enjoyed creating with my hands.
Many years later, cords unexpectedly came back into my mind. I wanted to give something special to someone I knew who had just moved into a new home — something made by me. Without thinking too much, I remembered those knots. That was the first time I didn’t work in bracelet format, but on a larger piece: I made a wall hanging with a wooden stick and hemp rope so he could hang it in his house. From there, little by little, more wall hangings began to emerge, and later the typical hanging plant holders.
Where does your interest in this type of textile art and thread installations come from? What attracts you to working with this material?
My interest comes from the gesture of the knot itself. I’m fascinated by the idea that it is one of the oldest gestures in existence, and that it has crossed cultures, eras, and contexts without ever disappearing. The knot is present in the simplest and most everyday actions: when you braid your hair, tie your shoelaces, knot a ribbon around your wrist, or close a bag. It’s a small gesture, but full of intention.
Each turn of thread, each knot, feels almost like a prayer to me — like a small decree sealed in time. There is something very powerful in that repetitive and conscious action.
I’m interested in that almost ritual dimension of making: the rhythm, the repetition, the patience. The magic that appears when something is slowly built by hand.
I feel that the knot has always been there, accompanying us, even before we called it art. And working from that gesture is, in some way, reconnecting with an ancestral wisdom that still lives within the everyday.
As for the material, it is deeply connected to that idea. I mainly work with natural fibers such as hemp, linen, or cotton because I feel they belong to that same ancient world as the knot — as if they have always gone hand in hand. They are honest materials, with memory, that age and breathe. I’m interested in that coherence between gesture and matter: an ancestral process sustained by materials that are also ancestral.
For me, it’s not just a technique. It’s a way of honoring something that has always existed.
Many of your pieces have a very spatial and organic character. What do you seek to convey or explore through them?
If the knot is the intimate gesture, I feel that the final piece is its expansion into space.
I’m interested in exploring how something born from a small and repetitive movement can transform into an almost architectural presence. I don’t seek to impose a rigid form. There is tension, there is structure, but there is also fluidity.
I’m interested in the pieces having something almost bodily about them, as if they were organisms that grow, expand, or sustain themselves.
I want to generate a feeling: of accumulated time, of patience, of density. I want whoever approaches the work to perceive the weight of each repetition, but also the softness of the material.
In the end, what began as an ancestral gesture becomes volume, becomes inhabited space. And that is where I’m truly interested in working.
In some projects you work together with your partner, Mike. What is it like to create together and how do you complement each other in the creative process?
Creating with Mike feels very natural because we come from different but highly complementary places.
I work from gesture, repetition, texture, and the organic. He comes from the world of fine carpentry and cabinetmaking, where precision, structure, and balance are fundamental.
That difference is what makes the dialogue interesting. I often think from the soft material — how the thread falls, stretches, or expands. He, on the other hand, thinks about how it is supported, how it is anchored, how it integrates into space in a solid and coherent way.
When we work together, the piece stops being only textile and begins to take on a more architectural dimension. There is a constant conversation between the flexible and the structural, between the organic and the geometric. And it is in that middle point where the most interesting projects appear.
I bring intuition and manual rhythm; he brings structure and the silent engineering that allows the piece to exist in space with stability and presence.
It feels like adding perspectives :)
Could you tell us a bit more about those shared processes? How does an idea arise when you work together and how does it evolve into a final piece?
The idea usually begins with a very open conversation. Sometimes it starts from a specific space; other times from the desire to take thread to a less obvious place — where it is not only observed, but also supports and dialogues with the body (that’s Mike’s area).
I usually begin by making small samples to understand how the material behaves: how it falls, how it generates volume, but also how it responds to tension and weight.
I’m interested in exploring how far the thread can go when worked from density and structure.
From there, Mike enters the process thinking about proportions, stability, and balance. He begins to design the base that will accompany the more organic part, so that the piece is not only visually light, but also firm and functional.
It’s a process of constant testing and adjustment: tightening more, reinforcing, simplifying, starting over if necessary. The piece evolves while we are making it. And the final goal is to find that point where the flexible and the structural stop feeling like two separate parts and become a single body, with real presence in space.
For this collaboration you chose some pieces from Romualda. Why those particular pieces?
They seem joyful, with character, but at the same time very easy to integrate into my daily life. They’re not something I wear only for a specific occasion — they are part of my routine, my way of moving and working.
I like that they have personality without being rigid. That they bring color and energy without imposing themselves.
I feel that Romualda combines personality, freshness, and authenticity. Each piece has something unique, a detail that makes it special, yet at the same time it feels honest and approachable.
Each piece has presence and strength in a very subtle way — that’s how I perceive it.
I find that same idea in my own work: I seek for each piece to have presence and strength, but also to function within space, to feel alive, and to dialogue with whoever experiences it. I like seeing how the care for detail and the intention behind each creation — both in Romualda and in my work — achieves a balance between what is thoughtfully designed and what feels natural.
Looking ahead, what projects are you currently working on or what would you like to explore next?
I currently have an exhibition open until March 19 on Passeig Sant Joan 30, titled Sílaba Muda.
In addition, I’m working on several commissions and developing my own body of work.
Recently I’ve created more than one installation, and I’m loving discovering all the possibilities that threads offer. The idea now is to experiment with new materials and explore different formats, continuing to expand the ways my work can inhabit space.
