The Belvedere Botanical Gypsotheque — 2026
Original tilte : la Gypsothèque Végétéle du Belvédère
Immersive installation - Echo exhibition - Curated by Chiraz Mosbah
“ This Gypsotheque does not exist. But what it seeks to preserve may one day no longer exist.“
Media : installation, Ceramics, Field Investigation
Themes : Living Matter, Memory & Disappearance
I imagined that this dovecote in Belvedere Park was, or will be, at some point in its history, the former molding workshop of the Belvedere Botanical Gypsotheque, a fictional institution dedicated to preserving the park’s plant life.
This Gypsotheque does not exist and never did. The project is a fiction based on scientific data and real facts.
The dovecote itself exists. It has already gone through several lives and transformations. Probably built during the colonial period, it is believed to have originally been a dovecote, before its function was transformed over time. According to various accounts, it later became a place for sacrifices and celebrations involving the Trabelsi family, and was then occupied by homeless people after the Revolution, before a fire broke out following their eviction. Today, its demolition is being considered.
The question of the site’s memory haunted me, along with the bitter realization of the dovecote’s gradual disfigurement. Amid all these stories, what do we choose to preserve, and what do we decide to erase?
I chose not to erase these different temporalities, but to add a new one: that of a former botanical molding workshop. Belvedere Park is home to an exceptional botanical heritage, made up of plants from all five continents that have been acclimatized to Tunis for more than a century. Yet plants are often treated simply as decoration, when they themselves constitute part of the memory of the place. It is from this contradiction that I imagined an institution intended to give this heritage a “patrimonial” value.
To construct this fiction, I began with a concrete exploration of the park. Accompanied by biologist Thouraya Chahed, I walked through Belvedere, observed its flora, and collected fragments of specimens. The plants and samples presented in the Gypsotheque come from this real encounter with the site.
I then imagined what a “botanical gypsotheque” might have been: its workshops, collections, archives, and methods of preservation. I created false evidence of its existence — archival photographs, botanical records, labels, reports, stamps, maps, and scientific documents — drawing on the forms and codes found in the real history of this type of institution.
Plaster particularly interested me because of its history. Gypsotheques traditionally preserve casts of sculptures, façades, or architectural fragments. Before the invention and widespread use of photography, face casts made in plaster or wax provided a way to obtain an exact, life-size, three-dimensional replica of a person’s features. Post-mortem casts were even made to preserve the memory of a loved one.
I have transferred this practice to the plant world. The cast immortalizes an imprint that can be observed, measured, and touched, preserving the forms, textures, and smallest details of a plant at the moment when it was still alive.
Several temporalities overlap within the project: the real history of the dovecote, that of the colonial park, its successive transformations, the fictional history of the Gypsotheque, and our present. Real archives coexist with invented documents.
The building has been left as I found it. Its current condition is an integral part of the work. Its state of decay tells us something about our relationship with the living world. What do we consider precious? What deserves to be preserved, studied, and passed on? Why are plants and animals, which occupy such an essential place in our environment, so often reduced to mere decoration?
The Gypsotheque was born out of a desire for preservation, but also out of concern. Drought, water scarcity, pollution, lack of maintenance and resources: all of these factors are gradually threatening this botanical heritage.
My dream would be for other Gypsotheques to emerge, in Aïn Draham, Gabès, Nafta…, preserving the memory of our exceptional yet increasingly fragile botanical heritage. Gypsotheques that would embody millennia of knowledge about adaptation and resilience, helping us face water scarcity, drought, and the climate changes that we are all already experiencing today.
Where do we stand in the writing of our own history?
→ See also : El Khadhra Project - My father’s gardens