Hirafen

The Hirafen exhibition offers an original dialogue between contemporary art and crafts. Nineteen multidisciplinary artists have been invited to draw on the skills of Tunisian weaving and braiding crafts to create specific works 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 many dimensions of an intangible heritage to be discovered, whose non-linear history is marked by evolutions, influences and ruptures.

From the north to the south of Tunisia, in towns and villages, in the public space of the medinas and in the intimacy of the home, men and women have always woven and embroidered thread and braided natural fibres, drawing on the very landscape that surrounds them. The rich diversity of materials, colours and motifs they have created over the centuries is the result of a wide range of skills and techniques that have been passed down through the ages.

Exploring this craft tradition has provided artists with a field for experimentation, enabling them to connect with the act of making, the gesture of the hand and, more broadly, with nature and history. The idea behind this exhibition is to create an opportunity for dialogue between artists and craftspeople, and to raise the question of how we can work together to make things. Knowledge continues to be passed on, and gestures repeated ad infinitum to preserve a collective memory that is still very much alive, as demonstrated by the Hirafen exhibition, whose many voices simply extend the narrative.

 

Curated by: Ludovic Delalande

 

 Joël Andrianomearisoa presents:

 Nostalgie d'une utopie panafricane

 

Abdoulaye Konaté presents:

Tunisie

 

Moffat Takadiwa Presents:

Golden Doors A & B

November 4, 2023