“ Self-censorship is the worst thing an artist can do. ”
Media : Artist Book , Installation
Themes : Politics & Revolution , Memory & Disappearance
“A year and a half after the so-called ‘revolution,’ we are still waiting, painfully and with difficulty, for what will form the very foundation of our new democracy.
August 2012: ‘First draft of the new constitution.’ I don’t understand… a veritable minefield that we have to cross together — or is it just a simulation? Are we being tested?
The crossing has to begin anyway. We have to stay together… Seven months of fact-checking, exposing wrongdoing, making calls, drafting petitions and sharing them on Facebook… a news feed under close surveillance. Scandals, diversions, injustice, murder, disgust…
Seven months later, a ‘premature’ child, unloved by its own parents…
Fassakh ou aaoued — ‘Erase and start again.’”
In 2013, two years after the revolution, we were still waiting for the new constitution. What had been published so far was only a draft.
Nine months of waiting for a draft — the length of a pregnancy.
I thought: if I had become pregnant on the day the Islamists came to power, I would already have given birth, and the constitution would still not have been published.
I decided to treat this draft like a premature baby — fragile and requiring careful handling.
I built it an incubator: a plexiglass box the size of a real neonatal incubator, with two openings through which visitors could insert their hands. The artist’s book could only be consulted in this way.
Inside the incubator was the draft constitution: a large notebook the size of a real baby.
I selected articles containing absurdities, ambiguous formulations, and passages that left room for interpretation. Together with my partner, I crossed out sections, added comments and jokes — drawing attention to the document’s loopholes and weaknesses.
I also added coloured-pencil drawings depicting the major events that had unfolded during those nine months: artists being attacked, the assassination of a political opponent, the seemingly endless wait for justice…
On the day of the opening, many people advised me not to exhibit the notebook in its original form. The atmosphere was already tense. Artists in particular were under surveillance, especially following the events at El Abdellia.
I eventually decided to censor myself — not by removing the notebook, but by completely crossing it out myself and writing “Self-censorship” across it.
I felt that self-censorship was the worst thing an artist could do.
It was painful. I couldn't shake the feeling.
On the opening day, I presented the notebook in this censored state. When visitors asked what had happened to it, I told them the whole story, using the work to reveal just how fragile our situation had become.
My message did not go unheard.
Two days later, three Salafists entered the gallery and went straight to my work. They leafed through it page by page. They were looking for something.
Finding nothing, they left.
The fears my family and friends had expressed had been justified.
In 2016, during an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, I finally presented both states of the notebook: the crossed-out version bearing the words “Self-censorship”, alongside projections of the original pages, as they had appeared before the censorship.
Medium / Date
Artist’s book, plexiglass box built to the dimensions of a neonatal incubator.
Fragile // Hach, Galerie Municipale de Sidi Bou Saïd, 2013.
Curated by Mohamed Ben Soltane.
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels, 2016.
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