©Riccardo Banfi
Yasmine Lahjij, also known as Yeddin, is an artist based in Milan and Tangier who currently develops several collaborative projects in urban and rural contexts. Her practice investigates local cultures, technological infrastructures, and material realities. Working across ceramics, embroidery, culinary arts, music, and performance, she reflects on pluralism, multispecies coexistence, and the interweaving of personal and collective narratives.
Yeddin’s projects often unfold as gatherings - banquet-performances, workshops, and collaborative processes - created throughout both the research and public presentation phases. These initiatives engage specific communities, and foster exchanges with artisans, architects, chefs, farmers, winemakers, and musicians.
By critically examining the tools and systems that shape territories, memory, transmission, and social relations, Yeddin explores how these frameworks transform within regional contexts. Her encounters open spaces of exchange where diverse worldviews come together to question the fundamental principles of life.
Works
[lésé pisé le mérinoːs]
Residency - Exhibition
Pietraroja, Italy, June 2026.
“Tangier (Pecora)”, henna on white linen, wooden frame, local wool, 2026.
“L’archivio rivisitato”, mixed-media, 2026.
“La corteccia della terra”, sandstone, aluminum tray, variable dimensions, 2026.
[lésé pisé le mérinoːs] developed in Pietraroja through a period of shared work with local inhabitants and the RuDeRi collective. Shaped by walks across the territory, shepherding practices, and informal encounters, the project unfolds as a series of situated exchanges. The title - an echo of “lascia pisciare la pecora” (“let the sheep be”) suggests a gesture of release and openness. The work takes form as a performative practice interweaving landscape, community and imagination, moving between tradition and drift.
At its core are materials such as local wool and stone, recycled-soil ceramics, Moroccan henna and archival and dialect elements, approached as cultural devices through which knowledge and memory circulate. Engaging shepherds, artisans, farmers and local actors, the project connects situated knowledge with changing infrastructures, linking transhumance traditions to contemporary (un)sustainable perspectives. The research evolves through site-specific installations, shared tastings and participatory actions that explore land use, mobility and forms of common life.
“Concetta”, black and white print, vintage frame from the Pietraroja’s archives, Moroccan henna on local stones, 2026.
“Pietraroja (Pietra)”, henna on white linen, wooden frame, local stones, 2026.
The Grounds On Which We Meet
Banquet-Performance
Padiglione di Chiaravalle, Milan, Italy, 19 December 2025.
Ecology is a living web of relationships: it connects places, languages, technologies, and communities in an interlacing of mutual dependencies that both sustain us and put us to the test. The banquet-performance The Grounds Where We Meet presents itself as a fragile and regenerative fabric, shaped by the flows that traverse it and the threats that challenge it - an invitation to rethink our way of inhabiting the world.
It intertwines realities and terroirs - from the Parc naturel régional des Alpilles in France to the Colli Orientali of Friuli Venezia Giulia, from the region of Tangier, Morocco, to Milan - through three shared tables that celebrate the act of eating together all the while standing up, a ritual gesture renewing an ancient union. A bridge-project between agricultural practices, natural resources, and (un)sustainable desires.Artistic direction/edible installation:
Yasmine Lahjij – Yeddin
Performance: Yasmine Lahjij
Light and sound mix:
Sergio Albert Gonzalez - Glub Glub Madrid / Sonorama Tanger
Second musical composition:
Jason Brockmeyer
Set-up: Marta Cataldi, Federica Miliani.
Ceramic bowls:
Nina Salsotto – Unurgentargilla
Ceramic spoons: Yeddin Studio
Tamegroute ceramics:
Atman & Saïd Tama Lakhdar
Wine: Ronchi di Cialla, Prepotto
Photography: Riccardo Banfi
With the kind collaboration of Terzo Paesaggio
A warm thank you to all collaborators and partners mentioned above, and in particular to Sergio Albert Gonzalez, Riccardo Banfi, Marta Bertani, Jason Brockmeyer, Marta Cataldi, Hafida Damou, Alessandro Di Pietro, Lucrezia Galeotti, Sara Ghebregzabher, Egidio Giurdanella, Jean Margaria, Denis Mattiuzzi, Federica Miliani, Andrea Perini, Rapuzzi family, Nina Salsotto, Bibiana Tarantino, and Jean-Claude Vincent.
images of the event courtesy ©Riccardo Banfi
Ceramics
m3aalq
Limited edition of handmade spoons
These spoon-shaped objects, hand-crafted with textured surfaces, were conceived for a banquet-performance. Beyound mere serving tools, they intensify and interrogate the sensory pleasures of eating. Each piece extends the body itself, blending tactile comfort with subtle unease to provoke a curious, embodied engagement.
m3aalq spoon: Yeddin
ceramic bowl: Nina Salsotto Cassina - Unurgentargilla
©Riccardo Banfi
m3aalq pieces were fired in this particular single-chamber kiln near Mt. Bisalta, Piemonte, built by ceramist Nina Salsotto Cassina. The firing took place in August 2025 in collaboration with fellow international ceramists.
Handcrafted and woodfired ceramics, various dimensions - wild foraged soils by Nina Salsotto - Unurgent Argilla, 2025.
Embroidered Bread
Culinary arts and textile
This work, created upon an invitation from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera – Milano’s “conTENERE” exhibition in Pietraroja, Campania, is crafted from organic beetroot bread made with a wild starter sourced from Lazy Farm in Benevento Province.
Created during a residency within a familial rural environment in Campania, Southern Italy, this work reflects how food - and especially bread - becomes a living testament to the transmission of knowledge, the richness of culture, and the unique identity of a terroir. It embodies the patient care of kneading hands, the wisdom passed down through generations, and the generous spirit of a shared community.
Homemade organic beetroot bread, wild yeast starter and ancient grains, hand embroidery on bread with reclaimed Provençal fabric sewn onto a cotton doily, circa 20 x 25 cm, 2025.
Residency and banquet-performance
“far fiorire le radici”
in collaboration with Lazy Farm Sant'Angelo a Cupolo, Italy, 28 June 2025
The residency at Lazy Farm culminated in a communal banquet performance accompanied by a series of ceramic and embroidery works, alongside a large drawing - each piece a crystallisation of the natural world absorbed during a month spent in the bucolic landscape of Sant’Angelo a Cupolo.
Lazy Farm is an innovative and creative farm in the surroundings of Benevento, Southern Italy. It nurtures a regenerative kitchen garden surrounded by fruit trees, an organic wheat field with ancient variety (Risciola), while simultaneously supporting a digital creative agency. This familial, multifunctional space fosters synergy, where each activity enhances and supports the others.
The project, which I envisioned under the title ‘Far Fiorire le Radici,’ arose from a dynamic dialogue that embraces both the farm’s history and its regenerative ethos alongside my personal approach and perspective. Yet, it extends outside these: the rich human cosmogony surrounding the farm revealed profound cultural, historical, and social layers, prompting reflection on the intertwined heritage and stories that define this unique place.
My practice extended far beyond solitary studio work. Instead, my presence in the Montorsi Valley was embraced and fueled by a genuine desire for connection and dialogue. Daily engagement with local inhabitants - through walks in the woods, dinners, pasta workshops, board game evenings, foraging, pagan rituals, cooking, film screenings, concerts, communal meals, and more - became meaningful activities that sparked deep personal reflections on the true meaning of hospitality and what it means to inhabit a place.
On the day of the public presentation, the works - spanning ceramics, drawing, and food design - were created in collaboration with local artisans and the host family. They came together around a kind of open, ever-democratic banquet table, finding their places atop garden straw, nestled in a wheelbarrow, or housed within the garden’s wooden shelter.
At the heart of this residency, and the creative body it inspired, lies a continuous effort to reconnect with the cyclical rhythms that quietly govern all living beings. Ultimately, this unique experience at Lazy Farm transcended solitary creation, blossoming into a radiant collaborative adventure where food, art, and sustainability weave together in a tapestry of shared participation and collective growth.
*Courtesy of Damiano Pontillo, with whom the special breads were made using the grandmother’s wild yeast starter. Courtesy of Alfonso Pontillo for the special documentary created during the residency, as well as for the light and sound.
Deinanthe Hamsa
Embroidery and ceramic
“Deinanthe Hamsa”
Framed embroidery on reclaimed mousselline and handcrafted ceramic glazed and woodfired in Tamegroute, Morocco, 31,5 x 34 cm (without frame), 2025.
Occhio Malocchio Ucellini
Hand embroidery and handcrafted ceramic
“Occhio Malocchio Ucellini”
Hand embroidery and handcrafted ceramic by Yeddin, pitfired in Palombara Sabina, Italy,
27,5 x 31,5 cm (without frame), 2025.
Reflecting on the Tammaro valley
Field research and rural regeneration
Architects Marta Cataldi and Egidio Giurdanella install "La Saragolla," a site-specific banner Yeddin Studio co-created with Terzo Paesaggio in Morcone last February 2025.
In February 2025, Yeddin traveled to Morcone, in southern Italy, to join the research residency led by Terzo Paesaggio (Milan) - a rural regeneration initiative within the framework of the TAM project.
The residency explored ways to nurture a “community of wheat,” restoring both land and life through a collective vision that interlaces Morcone’s natural and cultural heritage with a hybrid, community-powered bakery open to participants from across Italy and beyond.
In collaboration with the architects of Terzo Paesaggio, Yeddin created a site-specific, blue, hand-embroidered banner celebrating the local ancient wheat variety. The banner accompanied gatherings, a pagan celebration and campus events from February to July, becoming a symbolic thread connecting people and practices.
Collective Hand-Building in Tangier.
Pottery workshop with young people
In January 2024 in Tangier, in collaboration with the American Language Center and the Tangier American Legation, Yeddin led a series of three workshops inviting teenagers and young adults to explore for the first time pottery.
Participants learned fundamental hand-building techniques - pinching, coiling, and slab-building - navigating gestures that have traveled across ages and cultures. These versatile methods enabled them to create hollow forms, vertical structures, and geometric shapes.
Moving at their own pace, the groups engaged with tow different kinds of clay (brown Moroccan and grey Spanish earthenware), building shapes together or with eyes closed, fostering intimate sensory experiences. They then created elements of their choice through a mindful, slow process rooted in the present moment.
Situated at the crossroads of art and craft, these workshops aimed to offer alternative ways of sharing knowledge and raising awareness among young people.
Teenagers during the worlkshop at the American Legation Museum, January 2024, Tangier, Morocco.
Another workshop was held in collaboration with the association “Les Étoiles du Détroit” in Tangier, engaging teenagers and mothers from the Bni Makada neighborhood.
