Artist Residency “Indice d’une suite” Galerie Icebox, Paris - Musée du Bardo , Tunis
Artist Residency “Arkane Afrika” Les Abbatoires de Casa, Casablanca
Media : Installation , performance , Photography , Participatory
Themes :Politics & Revolution, Food , Body
The feast of the Famished - 2014
« In Tunisia, the famished feed on each other.— Jabeur Mejri »
In 2014, three years after the revolution, the demands remained the same: equality, freedom, justice…
This project emerged from a phrase and from what it resonated within us: the hungry eat one another. A metaphor turned literal.
Identity and food are intimately connected. Food taboos determine who belongs to a group and who is excluded from it. This feast embraces that idea: the other is consumed ritually, collectively, and consciously.
Le Festin des affamés is a satirical Ramadan table featuring ten traditional Tunisian dishes whose names, when translated literally, reveal morbid or cannibalistic connotations:
- Ain Sbanouréia — “The Eye of a Spanish Woman”
- Bouliss Mkattef — “The Tied-Up Policeman”
- Aijja bil Kalb — “Omelette with a Heart”
- Makouda — “The Knotted One”
- Lsén Méhchi — “Stuffed Tongue”
- Madfouna — “The Buried One”
- Makbouba — “The Overturned One”
- Ommok Houréia — “Your Mother Houréia”
- Osbén el Hajjéla — “The Widow’s Sausages”
- Souabaa Fatma — “Fatma’s Fingers”
The installation consists of a set table with a large photographic image suspended above it.
Two black ropes emerge from opposite ends of the table, inviting viewers to take their place and pull the rope towards themselves, progressively revealing the image.
Printed on translucent paper, the photograph remains particularly dark when not illuminated from behind. At least two people must therefore participate in order to consume this feast, both literally and metaphorically.
As the image is revealed, ten scans of these “cannibalistic” dishes gradually become visible.
Two “necrophagous” performances accompanied the installation.
The first consisted of preparing the “cannibal” dish Madfouna — literally “the buried one” — live in the gallery, and then eating it with the audience.
An invitation was circulated on social media, inviting people to come and share the meal with me.
The wait was long: more than seven hours of cooking.
People came, waited, left, and returned. The smell of Madfouna gradually filled the entire gallery.
Around 6 pm, the dish was finally ready.
Let’s eat.
The second performance took place at the opening. I prepared a deconstructed version of the Judge’s Ears, a traditional Tunisian pastry served during Ramadan. We ate it collectively as a symbolic act of revenge against the judge.
Medium / Date
Installation, table, translucent paper, scans, light. Two performances.
Galerie Glassbox, Paris, 2014. Musée du Bardo, Tunis, 2015.
Production support: Casbanova.
DHBIHA — 2016
“ A 'cannibal' meal between a Tunisian, an Algerian and a Moroccan ”
During my residency in Casablanca, at the slaughterhouses, I wanted to find a connection within local gastronomy that could link my work to Morocco.
I knew that in some African countries, certain dishes have names that can sound “cannibalistic.” I therefore set out to find these dishes in the streets and restaurants of Casablanca.
Dhbiha presents three scans of the ingredients of traditional dishes:
Sokrane tayah fi drouj — literally “A Drunk Man Falling Down the Stairs,” from Algeria, and Mokh Mcharmel — “Marinated Brain,” from Morocco.
For the exhibition, I created a table featuring these two scans, together with our own national dish:
Blouss Mkattef — “The Tied-Up Policeman.”
In the background, enlargements of pages from my travel notebook display the notes I made throughout the residency.
Medium / Date
Installation, table, translucent paper, scans, light, wooden panels with texts and drawings.
Casablanca slaughterhouses, Morocco, 2016.
Production support: Arkane Afrika.
→ See also : Karama Survival Kit — What If Tomorrow the Mloukhia Were to Disappear?