By James Brewer
Much emotion is woven into what is known as the Xeedho (pronounced as Hey-ro), the ceremonial basket prepared in Somalia by a woman for her son-in-law during the first week of a daughter’s marriage.
The deeply symbolic basket is venerated too at the centre of a new work of art by the impressive British Somali artist, Fozia Ismail.
Fozia is passionate about the connotations and troubled contemporary destiny of the precious asset: “The wedding basket, once an everyday object of nomadic life, is becoming an artefact. What is lost is not only the craft skills but an entire ecosystem of knowledge about our relationship with plants and animals that form a key part of the Xeedho.
“As forced migration severs communities from the land, the knowledge encoded in these practices, which plants to gather, which knots to tie, which songs to sing, begins to disappear with it.”
The artist, whose family has a nomadic background, unleashes the narrative power of the historical thread reaching back to the origins of the Xeedho, including its polyphonic vocal journey.
Her installation used family belongings, generational rope and knot weaving techniques, and a soundscape of traditional songs sung by Somali nomadic women.
In this way, it explored “collective labour, knowledge sharing, and the devastating impact of climate change on nomadic life.”
It was presented at London’s Whitechapel Gallery during its summer 2026 festival Backyard Biennial: East.
The endangered Somali wedding basket becomes a container for exploring how knowledge, memory and survival are transmitted collectively between Somali nomadic women across rural and urban landscapes
The project stemmed from a lost photograph taken in Somaliland in 1998 of the artist’s mother, aunt and another woman sitting against a bright blue wall, twisting plant fibres into wedding rope, “their hands moving like magic.” The women were transforming plants from the land into something strong enough to hold a house and a whole culture together, said Fozia.
Through such representation, Fozia explores women’s labour, migration, climate grief and the collective knowledge systems that persist despite the challenges.
The ceremonial basket is a layered ritual object of preserved camel meat, ghee, spices, leather and shells, bound with ropes intentionally hidden within its structure. The untying of those ropes forms part of the ceremony, accompanied by riddles, poetry and playful exchange. The knot is not simply a fastening; it is a test of social intelligence, a form of knowledge passed not through formal instruction but through observation, shared labour and embodied practice.
In the installation, a soundscape, activated through touching the ropes, is a collage of Somali folk songs sourced from the Centro Studi Somali (Centre of Studies on Somalia) at Roma TreUniversity.Choreographed within are recordings made by Fozia with Somali nomadic elders, including her family.
Drawing on feminist literary references like Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters, she uses the knot as a metaphor for the complex, otherworldly stories constructed between communities of women dealing with layers of discrimination. She holds the gaps between stories in tension, much as a knot holds many strands.
The installation confronts the urgency of the ecological crisis. The plants used to make wedding rope, the seasonal rhythms that structured nomadic life, and the songs sung are bound to landscapes being devastated by drought and climate breakdown.
“One thing that gives me hope is that despite climate collapse, the gatherings around the Xeedho still happen, although the materials may not be the same,” said Fozia. The Damal or Galool tree bark that was used to make the wedding rope is no longer available, but nomadic women have adapted by reusing food sack (usually made of plastic) rope.”
Her work insists on the traditions’ vitality as acts of resistance “against discrimination of Somalis, Islamophobia, and the violent logic of extractive capitalism.”
Fozia, who was born in Kuwait to a mother with Somali nomadic roots, said: “In making A Song for the Xeedho – The Knot Makers I am asking what it means to understand art as something that emerges not from individual authorship, but from women sitting together, weaving, knotting, cooking and preparing for life’s ceremonies and creating objects that are both aesthetically beautiful and healing.
“And in a time of ecological breakdown and displacement, I want to invite people to think more expansively about how we might hold onto culture in the broadest sense of the word (plant, animal, human), not as something fixed but, as one elder described it, as a living companion.”
A Song for the Xeedho – The Knot Makers was co-commissioned by Whitechapel Gallery with Counterpoints Arts, a charity with a mission “to support and create transformative art by, with, and about migrants and refugees – so their stories shape our culture and help change how we see displacement.” It was supported by Arts Council England.
Fozia is founder of Arawelo Eats, and co-founder of dhaqan collective. She makes use of food, sound, textiles and found objects to create works exploring migration, climate, identity and diasporic memory.
With the collective, she has exhibited internationally at the British Textile Biennial, Southbank Centre, Biennale Architettura Venice, Weltmuseum Wien, Playable Cities, Osaka, and Jodhpur Art Week, with support from the British Council and Arts Council England.
Fozia is a resident of Pervasive Media Studio at Bristol’s former working harbour Spike Island, centred on a converted tea-packing warehouse which is now home to creative businesses and scores of artists.
She founded Arawelo Studio, which is rooted in Somali feminist nomadic lore with a focus on community engagement and cultural preservation. The studio creates “joyful participatory work inspired by pastoral traditions in East Africa.”
Creative team for A Song for the Xeedho – The Knot Makers was Heather Marks, public programme producer; Rowan Bishop, sound design; Ibrahim Hirsi, archivist; Guy John. creative tech design; and Emma Boulton, immersive installation producer.
All images here were taken for the exhibition Fozia Ismail: A Song for the Xeedho – The Knot Makers. Whitechapel Gallery Backyard Biennial, 2026.
