Invisible Threads

Join us for the world premiere of this documentary bringing together two years of research exploring story, ritual, landscape and the making of a cross-cultural residency.

Conceived and narrated by Zouhair Khaznaoui.

Created through an artistic collaboration with Eimear Burke.

In partnership with Mermaid Arts Centre (Ireland) & The Storytellers Union for Cultural Innovation and Art of Storytelling (Morocco). Kindly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland International Residency Initiative Scheme.

In 2025 and 2026 a unique cross-cultural storytelling and artistic residency took place, uniting two ancient oral traditions from Ireland and Morocco. A collaboration between Mermaid Arts Centre and the Storytellers Union for Cultural Innovation and Art of Storytelling, the project brings brought renowned Irish Druid and storyteller Eimear Burke and Moroccan storyteller and cultural innovator Zouhair Khaznaoui. The heart of the residency was a shared exploration into the spiritual and metaphysical traditions of both cultures — examining beliefs and practices around healing, the unseen realms, and mythological beings such as djinn, druids, chouafa, mqadem, and Aos Sídhe. Through research visits, immersive fieldwork, and creative storytelling, the artists sought to uncover common threads that connect the spiritual fabric of Celtic and Amazigh-Arabic-African heritage. The project also touched on Moroccan forms of witchcraft and prophecy through traditional figures like the chouafa, while on the Irish side, it explores mythology and folklore. This comparative work offers a poetic and symbolic bridge between cultures through the lens of myth, ritual, and the sacred. This artistic and research exchange included two field visits — one in Ireland and one in Morocco — allowing each artist to experience the other's cultural landscape firsthand and collaboratively shape a performance rooted in shared insight.

What follows now is a stunning documentary of this project, conceived and narrated by artist Zouhaor Khaznaoui.

The Thread Needs Two Ends - Artistic Reflection, Zouhair Khaznaoui
I have always been interested in what official history leaves at the edge of the page.
History often gives us names, dates, treaties, wars and routes of conquest. It tells us who governed, who travelled, who traded and who prevailed. Yet beneath those visible records, human beings have always carried other things across borders: melodies, fears, prayers, gestures, symbols, remedies, superstitions, stories and ways of speaking to the unseen.
These movements are harder to archive.
They rarely leave behind official documents. They survive in the memory of a family, in the rhythm of an instrument, in the path towards a sacred spring, in the shape of a ritual, or in a story whose origin has long been forgotten. They remain present without announcing themselves.
I call them invisible threads.
The idea for this project began with a question that would not leave me: what connects Morocco and Ireland beyond what is commonly recorded?
At first, the distance between the two countries seemed considerable. Morocco stands at the north-western edge of Africa, facing the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Ireland lies on Europe’s Atlantic frontier. Our dominant languages, religious histories, climates and visual cultures are different. Our music carries different rhythms. Our sacred places carry different names. Our stories emerged from distinct landscapes.
Yet I had already learned, through years of working with storytellers from different countries, that distance can be misleading.
Two cultures may look very different and still ask the same human questions.
How do we understand a landscape that appears to hold memory?
Where do we go when ordinary explanations are no longer enough?
How does a community care for someone who is suffering?
What role do story, music and ritual play when people are seeking healing, meaning or belonging?
What happens when we approach the unknown with curiosity rather than fear?
These questions brought me to Eimear Burke…
I had first met Eimear through the Marrakech International Storytelling Festival. She came to Morocco as an invited Irish storyteller, carrying with her a deep relationship with Irish mythology, sacred landscape, psychology, Druidry, ceremony and the harp. We met again in Ireland, where I began to recognise that she could enter this inquiry with both discipline and openness.
I did not want to work with someone who would simply confirm my ideas. I wanted to work with someone who could challenge them, complicate them and bring an entirely different inheritance into the room.
Eimear and I are different in visible and important ways. We come from different generations, countries, religious environments and artistic traditions. I am a Moroccan Muslim man, born and raised in Marrakech, trained within the living oral practice of the hakawati (tale teller). Eimear is an Irish woman, psychologist, storyteller, harpist and Druid whose work is deeply connected to Irish mythology, ritual and the land.
Those differences were not obstacles to overcome. They were the conditions that made the project possible.
A thread needs two ends.
If both ends are placed in exactly the same position, nothing can be stretched between them. A connection requires distance. It requires tension. It requires two points capable of remaining distinct while becoming part of one line.

That became the method of Invisible Threads.