Shift Project · Central Tunis · Francophonie Summit · Djerba - Curated by Sara Bouzgarrou et Bochra Triki
« I was dead. Let me be born again. I want to go out to see the people. — Saïda Drayii »
Media : Artist Book , Installation , performance , Drawing , Video & VR
Themes : Transmission & Heritage, Memory & Disappearance
Saïda Drayii, known as Saïda El Khadra, an iconic dancer from Tunis and a major figure in Tunisian popular performance. A star since her appearance in Fadhel Jeziri’s Nouba in the 1990s. Then came silence, years of precarity, erasure…
I collected her words. She allowed me to draw them.
PHASE I — The Graphic Novel - 2019
The first time I met Saïda El Khadra was on June 20, 2019. I sat down in front of her and asked her to tell me her life story. That is where everything began — a door opened, and a monument was revealed to me: immense, monumental, beautiful, complex, but today in a state of disrepair.
The architecture was crumbling, worn down by the harshness of life and the precarious situation of artists who have been forgotten.
A monument holding part of our intangible heritage and collective memory is disappearing before our eyes.
The El Khadra project was born within the framework of Shift, a collective working to address the lack of visibility and recognition experienced by women in many sectors in Tunisia. Five unconventional stories of women, told by five women artists.
I created a 34-page graphic novel tracing Saïda’s life: the passion, the struggle to have Bedouin popular dance recognized as a legitimate art form, the glory, and finally precarity and erasure. The text is entirely in her own words.
At the presentation of the project, Saïda herself came on stage for the performance Saïda Tssakhen — Saïda warms up.
She was preparing for her return in front of an audience. She wore sugared almonds around her waist and distributed them to spectators as she danced, accompanied by a live folkloric band.
The sugared almonds — traditionally given to celebrate the birth of a newborn — became a symbol of rebirth for her.
Performance created in collaboration with Ferid Sanaa.
PHASE II — “Lella Saiida” - 2022 Francophonie Summit, , Djerba
A Houch Becomes a Zaouïa
One cannot speak about Saïda without seeing her dance in front of us. She does not simply dance — she connects with the ground, with the earth, with the elements, reminding us of who we are.
A book can be written about her story, it can be recorded, filmed. But seeing her dance up close remains a privileged moment between the artist and her audience. It is in that moment that her work reveals itself in its entirety.
This is what I wanted to preserve in the installation.
Inside a traditional Djerba house, visitors enter one of the rooms dedicated to Lella Saïda. Posters of Saïda that I drew depict her as a public figure, a star.
On the left, a video entitled Saïda Forever is projected in an endless loop onto the wall: white lines moving through darkness, sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative, reconstructing Saïda’s first appearance on Tunisian television in Fadhel Jeziri’s Nouba. Her real voice can be heard telling her story.
On the right, a room veiled by fabric, as if entering a zaouïa. The space is intimate. Archival photographs of Saïda hang on the walls, interwoven with fragments of illustrations I created.
On a table, a miniature hologram of Saïda dances in a loop to Bedouin music.
Saïda’s Dream is conceived as a music box, with the dancer spinning around herself to Bedouin music. It evokes the dream of the young Saïda, who danced on her mother’s bed and secretly dreamed of one day becoming a star of folkloric dance.
Around her, drawn on transparent plexiglass, are the ghosts of those who mattered in her life. They are there for her. They reflect her image.
Medium / Date
34-page graphic novel (drawing and script: Hela Lamine / text: Saïda Drayii’s voice / art direction: Sara Bouzgarrou). Performance. Hologram installation, video, drawing on plexiglass.
2019 — Residency, graphic novel and performance, Shift project. Presentation at Central Tunis.
2022 — Hologram and video installation, Francophonie Summit, Djerba.
→See also : Crossing - What If Tomorrow the Mloukhia Were to Disappear?