an island, metaphors

Socotra Island - Yemen 

Before becoming a leatherworker, I was a geographer. My research notably took me to the island of Socotra, in Yemen, where I worked on the consequences of geographical isolation. There I discovered how much a territory shapes ways of life, knowledge, languages, gestures, and cultures - and how much their diversity constitutes a wealth. 

In Socotra, the inhabitants imagine no hierarchy of value between "man and nature", the two being intimately linked. Children can bear the names of trees or stones; animals the names of children. When I asked the children to draw the route they take to go from their home to school, it became obvious to me that territories are shaped by man in symbiosis with the natural elements. 

international survival

the right to choose

Since 2022, Faméthic has supported the NGO Survival International and its fight for the rights of Indigenous peoples. 

Defending these peoples also means defending their right to choose their own way of life—including the right to reject certain models imposed by Western societies—and to preserve their territories, languages, knowledge, and cultures. 

1% of sales from the Terre humaine collection is donated to Survival International.

 An Ethnomusicologist's Enchanted Itinerary 

 The Bangui Brass Band 

"I'll give you an extreme example: the first time I heard the Pygmies sing (I still get chills just telling you about it). It's music you don't know, that you have no reason to have ever heard, and yet, you know it, without knowing it. It's probably one of the great mysteries of music, what makes it so powerful. It resides within us at truly archetypal levels or, if you prefer, at the level of the collective unconscious."

Simha Arom

"Another culture can be unknown to us and yet reach us immediately. It is also from this conviction that Terre Humaine was born"

Valérie