Since its launch in 2014, Talan l’Expo has taken place in a new venue each year, accompanied by a corresponding publication, making it a major event on the Tunisian art scene.
Circumambulation, 2014 – Réminiscence, 2015 – 3ajel-Le Temps Réel, 2016 – Gorgi Pluriel, 2018.
The Hirafen exhibition offers a unique dialogue between contemporary art and Tunisian textile crafts. Nineteen multidisciplinary artists have been invited to draw on the craft of thread and fibre weaving to create specific works of art as part of a research and production residency in Tunisia. Through their respective artistic practices, these artists of different origins and generations have each developed a singular approach that delves into the variety of dimensions of an intangible heritage that is all too often overlooked, and whose non-linear history is marked by changes, influences and ruptures. From the north to the south of Tunisia, in the towns and countryside, in the public areas of the medinas and in the intimacy of the home, women and men have always woven, embroidered and braided thread and fibre gathered from their surrounding environment. Their age-old gestures have generated works whose rich diversity of materials, colours and motifs are the result of a wide range of skills and techniques that have been passed down through the time. Exploring the handicraft tradition provides visual artists with a new field in which to experiment, but also to reconnect with making, with gesture, with the hand and, more broadly, with nature and history. It’s also an opportunity for creating dialogue between artists and craftsmen and women, raising the question of more intricate collaborations within their own practices. Knowledge continues to be passed on and gestures repeated, feeding a collective memory that is still very much alive, as demonstrated by the Hirafen exhibition, where the diversity of its many voices enriching the narrative.
Hirafen is the 5th edition of Talan l’Expo and marks the 10th anniversary of its creation.
Practical information:
Hirafen
November 4th 2023 – March 20th 2024
Ateliers du Centre technique du tapis et du tissage (C3T), Denden, Tunis (Tunisia)
Opening Hours:
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Every Day
Free admission
Vernissages
Exhibition curators:
Ludovic Delalande
Nadia Jelassi
ARTIST LIST :
Majd Abdel Hamid (1988, Syria), lives and works between Paris and Beirut
Joël Andrianomearisoa (1977, Madagascar), lives and works between Paris, Antananarivo and Magnat l’Étrange
Asma Ben Aïssa (1992, Tunisia) lives and works in Tunis
Meriem Bouderbala (1960, Tunisia), lives and works in Tunis
Dora Dalila Cheffi (1990, Finland) lives and works between Tunis and Helsinki
Binta Diaw (1995, Italy) lives and works between Milan and Dakar
Jennifer Douzenel (1984, France) lives and works in Paris
Aïcha Filali (1956, Tunisia) lives and works in Tunis
Mohamed Amine Hamouda (1981, Tunisia) lives and works in Gabès
Sonia Kallel (1973, Tunisia) lives and works in Tunis
Abdoulaye Konaté (1953, Mali) lives and works in Bamako
Aymen Mbarki (1983, Tunisia) lives and works in Tunis
Chalisée Naamani (1995, France) lives and works in Paris
Sara Ouhaddou (1986, France) lives and works between Paris and Marrakech
Zineb Sedira (1963, France) lives and works between Paris, Algiers and London
Aïcha Snoussi (1989, Tunisia) lives and works between Sète and Tunis
Moffat Takadiwa (1983, Zimbabwe) lives and works in Harare
Ali Tnani (1982, Tunisia) lives and works in Tunis
Najah Zarbout (1979, Tunisia) lives and works in Sousse
Ateliers C3T, Denden, Tunis (Tunisia)
Hirafen takes place within the 2,000 m² workshops of the Centre technique du tapis et du tissage, renovated for the occasion by the Dzeta agency, thanks to the support of Talan, and transformed into a temporary exhibition space. Located in Denden, a district in the west of Tunis, halfway between the Bardo Museum and Manouba, these industrial buildings, constructed in the 1970s, were used as a wool complex with a spinning mill and a dyeing plant. Once owned by the Office national de l’Artisanat tunisienn (ONAT), they are now the property of the Centre technique du tapis et du tissagee (C3T), which, following the exhibition, hopes to give them a new lease on life serving the craftmanship.