JAOU TUNIS: ASSEMBLY
ABDO SHANAN, GHYZLÈNE BOUKAÏLA, HICHEM DRISS, JOYCE JOUMAA, LYDIA SAIDI, MAHASEN NASSER-ELDIN, MASHID MOHADJERIN, NERMINE HAMMAM, ZIED BEN ROMDHANE
CURATED BY DR. TAOUS DAHMANI
The Tunisian capital resonated with the pulse of Jaou Tunis, a biennial of contemporary art that fosters transnational solidarity and challenges established narratives. For one month, Tunis showcased its status as a cultural hub, hosting a variety of exhibitions, performances, and discussion meetings across various locations.
Founded by Lina Lazaar, the Kamel Lazaar Foundation in 2013 and co-organized in partnership with the French Institute since 2022, Jaou Tunis has emerged as an important platform for artists and cultural practitioners from Tunisia and beyond. It serves as a bridge that unites local and international creators, fostering critical reflections on universal themes and celebrating the transformative power of cultural métissage.
In its seventh edition, the theme Art, Resistance, and the Reconstruction of Futures, the city evolved into a pulsating hub of cultural convergence, featuring nine exhibitions, nine performances, nine debates, and the contributions of over sixty artists from across the Global South.
Lydia Saidi, Untitled, from the series The Fields of Possibility in Suspense (2019-2023)
Installation view by Mehdi Ben Temessek
One of the photography exhibits was held in a repurposed warehouse curated by Dr. Taous Dahmani and assisted by Imen Bahri. The interior exhibition was designed by Wadi Mhiri.
Assembly, created a dialogue between geographies — Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, and Iran— and the visual history of people’s uprisings.
Imagined as the first chapter of a larger project, Dahmani invited artists based, or from, the region who are reimagining the ways in which citizens’ protests are being depicted.
The exhibition asked: how to address/evoke/conjure the powerful reality of a people’s action in public space?
What does a re-envisioning of gathering as radical hope look like?
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