2012

Common Grounds: Artistic Practices, Civil Society, and Secular Determination in Tunisia Today

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02 November 2012

Faten Gaddes, Punching-ball, 2011, installation view. Photograph by Adam Le Nevez.

‘Doing art means displacing art’s borders, just as doing politics means displacing the borders of what is acknowledged as the political …’ [1]

In the last year or so, a perennial issue has re-emerged in discussions of contemporary art practices in the Middle East and North Africa: what is the relationship of art to politics; or, similarly, what is the relationship of the aesthetic to revolutionary forms of activism? The confusion, intentional or otherwise, between art as a practice and art as a form of civil activism has given rise to a number of considerations, not least the role of art, if indeed it has one, in engaging civic and public space. This confusion has produced mixed results and a degree of scepticism towards opportunistic curatorial remits that co-opt art practices into the political aesthetic of revolution and, thereafter, into the service of a revolutionary politics. These curatorial gestures expose two relatively opposed positions in current debates: for some, art as activism negates the aesthetic dimension of art; whereas for others, art without activism of some sort – or at least a political inclination if not motivation – abrogates the authority of art as a form of social commentary. Neither position, I want to argue in what follows, is tenable – if indeed they ever were – and both need to reconsider the potential of a common ground between them, nowhere more so than in light of ongoing events in the region and elsewhere. (more…)

Where to Now: Chkoun Ahna at the National Museum of Carthage, Tunis

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30 May 2012

View from Carthage National Museum. Photograph © ATP/Ibraaz Publishing, 2012.

The city of Carthage is a tale of multiculturalism and globalisation before these terms had currency in post-colonial studies and the free market rhetoric of neo-liberal expansionism. The name of the city has roots in Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician, Etruscan, Arabic, and Ancient Greek terminology. It has also been populated by Phoenicians, Romans and Arabs over a history that reaches back to the 1st millennium BC and was a significant locus of international trade until recently. Amongst its present-day ruins, tourists flock to see not only the extant remains of the Roman Forum that once stood there but the view from the hill of Byrsa, a purview of influence over a crucial Mediterranean route that once made Carthage one of the most important pre-industrial cities in the world (perhaps second only to Alexandria during the Hellenistic period). Today, however, Carthage is a suburb of Tunis with a population of no more than 25,000 people. As with all great cities, Carthage has indeed seen better days. (more…)