“Morocco, Desert Color” was the title of an exhibition held from April 30–August 24, 2014, at the Musée Bargoin of Clermont-Ferrand.1 The exhibition displayed strange and beautiful Moroccan carpets from the Mergouza region. A visit to this exposition provoked not only strong emotions but also an insistent reflection.
The exhibition followed the French government's purchase of a collection of carpets collected by Arnaud Maurieres and Eric Ossart, both introduced as “ethnologists and collectors.” They may be qualified as investigators and collectors, but surely not as ethnologists: living in a foreign country alone does not suffice to become an ethnologist. Indeed, what was sorely lacking in this exhibition, and surely also in the circumstances of its realization, was an ethnological perspective on the relationship between foreigners and the local population. In fact, as can be seen on their websites, Maurières and Ossart are botanists and landscape experts, tour operators, and...