Culture in Tunisia once again confirms that it is an act of solidarity, resistance, and construction. The South has remained and will remain faithful to the principles it launched in the 1950s, principles that enshrine solidarity with liberation forces worldwide, support resistance, and seek different and diverse creative paths for young people’s aspirations towards a broader future.
During a press conference in the old city on Wednesday, the details of the seventh edition of the ‘Jaou Tunis’ Biennale of Contemporary Arts were announced. This African-spirited and globally ambitious artistic event will take place in the heart of Tunis for 30 days from October 9 to November 9, 2024, under the theme ‘Art, Resistance and Reconstruction’.
The Jaou Tunis Biennial is an initiative of the Kamel Lazaar Foundation for Culture and Arts, in partnership with the French Institute in Tunis and with the support of the Tunis Development Foundation. For a whole month, the city of Tunis will be transformed into a centre of cultural excellence, with a rich and varied programme that includes 8 exhibitions in symbolic places in Tunis, meetings and debates on rebuilding the future, concerts and performances that transcend genres and borders.
All these performances and meetings will engage the public space, opening its doors to different audiences, and turning the city of Tunis into a vast artistic theatre that embraces everyone.
Speaking about the spirit of the event, Hassan Arfaoui, Jaou Tunisia’s Director of Communications, said during the press conference that people are in dire need of what he called ‘active ideals or utopias’ that enable the achievement of small steps on the path of universal human creativity.
For her part, Lina Lazaar, Director of the Kamal Lazaar Foundation, said that ‘Jaou Tunis is not just a passing artistic event, but a creative force of change that aspires to rebuild our relations with the world and proposes a new landscape where ideas, cultures and hopes meet and interact to redraw peace and contribute to the invention of a peaceful and solidary human future’.
Fabrice Rousseau, Director of the French Institute in Tunis, emphasised the importance of highlighting local creative energies and helping them to spread worldwide. In a world that has become closed and polarised, the arts need to move and artists need to be concerned with the ‘’present‘’, which has become alarming and tiresome and requires change.
‘ Jaou Tunis’ is the voice of the South in resistance, solidarity and support for every free spirit in the face of the evils of globalisation, as revealed during the press conference.
TunisianMonitorOnline (Dhouha Talik – English: NejiMed)
