Winter-Winter in Algeria by Ellen Rogers 1865

Book1 Winter 

I sat down and looked around me listening to robust and difficult conversations. I fingered a book in front of me and the cover page slipped of and the spine collapsed. I quickly pulled my hand back and felt guilty. I cast my eyes around and many people were deep in discourse, touching books, handing over books and pointing to books lying on a very long boardroom table in Nugget Square Unit 15.

In the end I selected the book that was lying in front of me and from which I pulled my fingers back. It was written by Ellen Rogers and published 1865 about her journey in 1862-63 to Algeria. It was the image on the cover that attracted my eyes. The covered woman, wrapped in fabric, layered with material. Inside were a few printed images that were beautiful. These are copies made from watercolors by the Consul- General Mr.Churchill, somebody Ellen praises in her journal. (Page 81)

I knew very little about Algeria accept off course the violent history with the French colonialisers and the brutality of war, massacre and religious intolerance.

In the first book I re-constitute some of the drawings and embroidered the pages holding information of her journey. I selected parts of Ellen Rogers’s original journal and some of the pages that talks directly to the fact that Britain could and should have rather been the colonialiser of Algiers according to her. Constantly she also refers to Faith, specifically the Christian Faith as the only way to help, tame, and support the poor ‘musselmans’. She refers to this, as it is her knowledge base as the only answer of a better future in Algeria.