Sousse · Paris · Geneva · Perugia
« I died at sea… I died with them… and today I am reborn. »
Media : Installation · performance · Participatory · Drawing , Walking · Mural
Themes : Migration & Borders , Politics & Revolution
The starting point was the sinking of a makeshift boat carrying more than two hundred people on the night of 2 June 2018, departing from Kerkennah and heading towards Italy. More than one hundred people died or went missing — infants, children, teenagers, of different nationalities.
Traversée is a series of three participatory performances, structured around a single question: how can we physically bring another person’s body into a crossing that takes the form of a ritual — not simply to recount death, but to celebrate rebirth?
The project draws on an interview with a survivor that I heard on the radio. He ended his account with these words: “I died at sea… I died with them… and today I am reborn, today I am one day old, today I am a newborn.”
ACTE II — Ch9af El 7orrigua ( The Raft of the Medusa )
Travelling and participatory mural — Sousse, Paris, Geneva, Perugia, 2018–2019
I imagined a dialogue of the deaf between two works: Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, at the Louvre, and the mosaic of Medusa at the Archaeological Museum of Sousse.
The mural was created on 3 July 2018 in Sousse, for the first edition of the artist residency Utopies visuelles, organised by Elbirou Gallery. The wall belonged to a former post office building in B7ar Ezzebla — “the sea of rubbish” — a popular, contrasting area overlooking the sea. Families come there to swim, while towards the end of the day, men sit on the ground drinking alcohol, looking out towards the horizon and imagining a better future on the other side of the Mediterranean.
The wall seemed to open a passage towards the open sea — the perfect place to set down a boat ready to leave.
I drew the boat and its passengers in black paint, leaving others to bring colour to it. For me, this collective act of colouring evoked a return to childhood dreams — without barriers or borders. As if it took several people to push the boat and make it sail.
As a university lecturer with a monthly salary, I had obtained a visa. I could cross the Mediterranean legally, without risking my life.
I owed something to my passengers: I had to get them safely to shore.
In September 2018, Ch9af El 7orrigua crossed the border — in a transportable version, painted on cardboard packaging and carrying all its passengers. Paris first, then Geneva, then Italy.
At each stage, one of the passengers would leave the boat and settle in the host country. The boat would continue its journey.
Produced by: Elbirou Gallery / Viv’Art Tunis / Galerie Sémaphore / Open Art Week
ACT II — Blue Iftar : 7ar9a ou Chaouia ( The Blue Dinner: Burning and Barbecue )
Immersive and participatory performance — Tunis, 2 June 2019
2 June 2019 — exactly one year after the shipwreck.
A surprise, ticketed walk through the streets of Tunis brought together more than one hundred participants. It began an hour and a half before sunset, just before the breaking of the fast.
Upon purchasing their ticket, each participant received an altered visa application form, a survival kit, a coloured bracelet, and two coupons.
Groups of twenty were formed and guided by “passeurs” — smugglers turned guides — through six locations across Tunis. The journey was punctuated by food, dance, music, theatre, and slam poetry.
What the participants did not know was that the walk was in fact a detailed account of a migrant crossing of the Mediterranean that had ended in tragedy exactly one year earlier.
The bodies, weakened by fasting, moved through the city in a situation echoing that experienced by the migrants one year before.
The performance ended with a convivial yet unsettling banquet, followed by the reading of a story in slam form recounting the deadly crossing of 2 June.
Blue Iftar celebrates the survivors’ rebirth and second chance, while attempting to make the weight of the actual crossing physically tangible.
To produce Blue Iftar, we approached several potential supporters, including the Italian Embassy, which declined to fund the performance.
Performance created in collaboration with Hamdi Mejdoub (poet) and Bahri Ben Yahmed (choreographer).
In partnership with Mobdiun Creative Youth and Maison de l’Image.
Produced by: Central Tunis
ACT III — Crossing
Immersive and participatory performance — Open Art Week, Tangram, Perugia, Italy, 2019
In Perugia, the roles are reversed.
Crossing invites Italians to experience the journey of an undocumented traveller, questioning what it means to become a harraga when a visa — or even a passport — is refused.
Presented as a fake guided tour through the city, the performance transformed guides into smugglers and the walk itself into a symbolic act of passage.
To participate, the audience had to pay €1 and fill out a Schengen visa application form — an absurd requirement for people who had probably never encountered such a document in their own lives.
The route passed through six emblematic locations in Perugia, where storytelling, fiction, and food intertwined.
During the guided tour, the guides told the story of a group of travellers — half human, half divine — who dreamed of migrating to a neighbouring country and recounted the obstacles and adventures they encountered along the way.
The walk ended in the basement of Tangram Gallery, where I was waiting for the participants with a fish soup — a speciality of Kerkennah — and the unveiling of The Raft of the Medusa mural.
The participants were then invited to step into the childhood dream.
Guide texts written by artist and writer Samir Makhlouf.
Performance produced by: Open Art Week Perugia
Medium / Date
Participatory mural, immersive travelling performances.
Sousse — Paris — Geneva — Perugia, 2018–2019.
Produced by: Elbirou Gallery / Viv’Art Tunis / Galerie Sémaphore / Open Art Week / Central Tunis
→ See also : Spaghetti pescatore al nero di sepia - Surreal Flag - Karama Survival Kit