Anisa Nachett: Where Western Bricks Meet Moroccan Zellige in her Sculptures

Anisa Nachett is a Moroccan-British artist living between London and Marrakech. Trained as an architect, she now works with ceramics, shaping clay into sculptural forms that tell stories about culture, identity, and memory.

In her project Zellige Bricks, Anisa brings together two worlds: the Western brick, straight, industrial, and uniform, and the Moroccan zellige, colorful, geometric, and deeply rooted in Islamic craft traditions. By combining these two building elements, she explores her own experience of living between cultures.

She works with red clay and natural oxides from the Ourika Valley in Morocco. Every piece is made by hand. The patterns look familiar, but they are slightly distorted—each cut a symbol of movement, displacement, and finding belonging across borders.

As Anisa says, “Each cut feels like a cut from my core, a piece of my soul.”

Her work is inspired by Islamic geometry, but she reimagines it in sculptural forms to reflect today’s world. What was once decoration becomes structure. What was once flat becomes full of depth and feeling.

Before founding her own atelier, Anisa worked in London with the famous designer Ron Arad. Later, she decided to return to materials, training in ceramics and welding, and learning from artisans across Morocco and Southern Africa.

Today, she continues to create, teach, and reflect. Her art builds a bridge between London and Marrakech, bricks and zellige, tradition and change.