Disability has never been a barrier to creativity
Jean Yves SEVESTRE with the sculpter Hassan LAAMIRAT in his workshop
Hassan LAAMIRAT is a Moroccan sculptor who besides his talent is a warm and enthusiastic man; Handicapped since childhood following a disease, he grew up with a wheelchair that we don’t even pay attention to when we meet him and when we see him moving from one work to another because his success is growing, he now works with a dozen assistant ironworkers.
He himself draws each model and supervises all the details and intervenes himself with a soldering iron tip and a blowtorch on all his works.
He mainly uses recycled metal parts that some guys are picking up for him every week in the scrap metal district of Marrakech. These are essentially mechanical parts of bicycles, motorcycles, cars and old tools, he use works pinions, chains, tool keys, locks, bearings, springs, bolts and nuts, ventilation grates, spark plugs and even shock absorbers, tank parts or gas cylinders.
He alone can grasp the essence, movement and spirit of each of the animals he realizes, and each work is unique; the use of small pieces of metal requires considerable work but allows him to work the details to express with great sensitivity as the head position of a horse for example.
These works are really upcycling, the assembly of scrap and mechanical parts giving a new life to these wastes by sublimating the sculpture of an animal; Hassan is therefore what can be called an «eco-creator».
Hassan shows us how human imagination and creativity allow us to create real works of art from recycled waste.