Carthage Contemporary | Chkoun Ahna
Curators, Khadija Hamdi and Timo Kaabi-Linke
National Museum of Carthage
12 May - 15 Jun 2012
Artistes: Ahmed Mater, Ahmet Ögut, Ali Tnani, Amina Menia, Ayşse Erkmen, Boris Kajmak, Fakhri El Ghezal, Félix Fernandez, Hala Elkoussy, Hrair Sarkissian, Ismail Bahri, Pauline M'barek, Kader Attia, Lara, Favaretto, Maha Malluh, Mouna Karray, Mustapha Akrim, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Nicène Kossentini, Nida Sinnokrot, Pascal Hachem, Saâdane Afif, Sirine Fattouh, Taysir Batniji, Timo Nasseri, Yousef Moscatello, Ziad Antar, Zineb Sedira.
On May 12, the National Museum of Carthage, Tunisia, opens an exhibition of contemporary art for the first time, in its east wing. The exhibition, “Chkoun Ahna,” which translates to “who are we?” or “about us” in Tunisian Arabic, inaugurates Carthage Contemporary, a contemporary art exhibition to be installed in a different site in the city annually. The initiation of the exhibition program, and the contemporary nature of the works included in this year’s show, indicate an upsurge in new cultural production in Tunisia that followed last winter’s Jasmine Revolution. Chkoun Ahna represents the country’s manifold history and the ethnic, political, and cultural facets of contemporary Tunisian society.
Timo Kaabi-Linke, a German sociologist and writer living in Tunis, who organized the show with Khadija Hamdi, an art historian based in Tunis and Paris, spoke with A.i.A. about the exhibition and the cultural climate in Tunisia. Before the revolution, he said, “the whole art scene was living in a cocoon. Now there’s a kind of opening.”