We celebrate the difference

In a country where there are few art exhibitions and associations dedicated to contemporary art, INTERFERENCEemerges as an alternative, an initiative that brings contemporary art closer to people, a project that sheds the lights on the cultural heritage and architecture of the Medina of Tunis and reflects  the uniqueness of its urban tissue and abandoned sites through light. 

The project started in 2016, as an initiative of Bettina Pelz and Aymen Gharbi, gathering many young volunteers, artists, and a professional team of junior curators and took place for 3 days in September in the Medina of Tunis, where its neighborhoods, walls, and historical monuments were bathed in light and art.

The project continued for two more editions, INTERFERENCE 2018 and INTERFERENCE 2020, where it took a completely new form due to the current situation of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

As it was not possible to organize the same festival: gathering thousands of people in the same place, the alternative was mainly to launch a different kind of festival, the INTERFERENCE series, a series featuring a variety of projects that will be held throughout the whole year involving artistic and cultural workshops, along with public exhibitions in the Medina of Tunis with the main focus on emerging Tunisian artists, curators, and art mediators who are still in the process of developing themselves in the field.

Focusing on various social and environmental causes, the INTERFERENCE series has launched its first ecological project that explores the effect of the waste stream that results from increased contact with digital tools.

In a world where the development of all kinds of devices has taken the lead, ignoring the real environmental issues that this development is causing, Electrical Disorder, a program supported by Heinrich Boell Stiftung comes to bring this issue to light through light art.

The exhibition took place in Dar Lasram, with 4 artworks made by artists from different backgrounds and countries, Haifa Ouerfelli, Oussema Menchaoui, Friedrich Boell, and Rym Hayouni.

Live performance by Artist Rym Hayouni

Art work by Oussema Menchaoui 

Nature through the eyes of Haifa Ouerfelli : Lucidum

The INTERFERENCE series also proceeded with a different project called the Young Masters' Program, supported by the GOETHE-INSTITUT, a project that features workshops solely destined to 10 young artists, coming from very different backgrounds Yassin Agerbi, Zied Belaifa, Mohamed Gharbi, Mariem Hidri, Bastien Lagier, Zeineb Kaabi, Rima Khraief, Omeyma Medini, Haifa Ouerfelli, and Becem Sdiri, who was invited to develop and produce an artwork that would become part of the final exhibition in various public spaces of the medina of Tunis that was held on the 19th and 20th of March 2021.

Omeyma Medini criticizing the fast fashion industry through her artwork "Submergé(e)s"

 "Jardin de l’équilibriste" by Rima Khraief

"Noise In Conversation"  by Becem Sdiri 

"Through my eyes" by Yassin Agerbi 

With the accompaniment of their curators, who led them through the entire process, as well as the assistance of their art mediators for several months, the Young Masters' program artists were able to live up to the audiences’ expectations with fascinating artworks that might take the INTERFERENCE project to a whole new level.

From installations that lead you to question your entire identity to interventions that translate the chaotic reality we live in, The Young Masters' Program immerses you in a deep journey of self-reflection and interaction with the outside world.

And whilst it is important to state the aesthetically pleasing outcome of the project, let us not forget that such a successful exhibition would not have been possible without the enormous dynamic team of the Young masters' program, a one-of-a-kind collaboration of curators, art mediators, technicians, producers and coordinators who worked day and night, overcoming the challenges of the pandemic and the pressuring circumstances that delayed the final exhibition several times to finally achieve what they have passionately worked for with great success.