Beya Othmani

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  picks June 01, 2023

  Sonia Kacem

  Judging by the title “Jelliz et Gestes” (Zellij and Gesture), it’s easy to assume that the focal point of Sonia Kacem’s latest exhibition is zellij, the tradition of enameled ceramic tiles associated with the western Islamic world. And yet the Swiss-Tunisian artist’s inquiry is more cunning than that. Since Tunisia gained independence in the 1950s, numerous classically trained artists have devised strategies to integrate vernacular craft techniques into their production process. In doing so, they have checked all the right boxes, addressing their place within both the specificities of their

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  picks March 15, 2023

  Lucía Pizzani

  With her exhibition “Meruntö: In the house of spirits,” artist and environmentalist Lucía Pizzani invites us to take part in a ritual for remembering and recovering the knowledge of how to coexist with and within nature. Through a selection of solar prints, photography on paper and fabric, and ceramics-based sculptures, she honors ancestral spiritual practices and converts the gallery space into a temple to Meruntö, a cosmic energy force derived from the sun that South American Pemon Indigenous tradition holds to be housed in all living organisms.

  Rooting her practice in Pemon philosophy, the

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  picks February 01, 2023

  Yesmine Ben Khelil

  For her solo show “New Flesh, the Feeling of the Evening is Deep” at La Boite, Yesmine Ben Khelil turns her attention to the Carthage oceanographic museum Dar el Hout. The public institution’s poor maintenance and frequent water leaks inspired the Tunis-based artist to speculate on what would happen if the building were to be fully flooded, drowning the creatures—both living and dead—that it hosts. What new forms of existence would these objects assume under these conditions?

  Ben Khelil effects the transformation with a partial reconstitution of Dar el Hout: Upon walking in on the coastal blue