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An Art-Lover’s Guide to Tunis’ Ground-Up Contemporary Scene

In the absence of state backing, a privately driven ecosystem is redefining what’s possible in North Africa’s most underrated art capital.

There is an organic quality to the art scene in Tunis, where art grows out of the bustling, lively, chaotic energy that agitates the city’s streets and animates individuals trying to channel it into an art system. That’s not an easy feat for a scene that can’t rely on any kind of government master plan, but solely on a handful of people who have set out on a mission to build something durable.

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Among those in the cultural trenches, the most visible internationally is without a doubt Selma Feriani, whose new gallery in industrial El Kram, close to the port of La Goulette, opened in January 2024. The three-story space has operated since its opening with a scale and seriousness that holds its own in any European city. “I decided to build this knowing that in North Africa, most gallery spaces have been pre-existing and refurbished,” Feriani tells Observer. “For the gallery, I wanted it purpose-built, with all the conditions that are required for it to be an exhibition space.”

It took two years and a partnership with architect Chacha Atallah, whose fingerprints are visible in every decision: the exterior references a hand-application technique traditionally used in southern Tunisia, rendered in concrete; the garden is planted with olive trees, palms and orange trees.

Rebuilding a country’s cultural narrative

The current program makes that argument with two simultaneous shows. Nadia Ayari’s paintings occupy the main hall: large canvases in which plants and flowers take on a menacing quality through repetition, appearing like weapons of sorts. In an indirect way, the canvases speak to the contemporary world’s state of alert and anxiety.

Running alongside in the mezzanine is Nidhal Chamekh’s “Frictions,” an extension of his project “Et si Carthage…,” a far-reaching historical investigation of the power dynamics across the two sides of the Mediterranean and its archetypes. Through the show, it’s clear Feriani’s aim is to set the stage for Tunisian artists to begin a set of conversations that resonate internationally but are deeply anchored here in Tunisia.

And how could it be otherwise? Feriani grew up in the cobblestoned blue-and-white town of Sidi Bou Said, and she is the daughter of gallerist Essia Hamdi, whose Le Violon Bleu represented the painters of the École de Tunis, the country’s main modernist movement. “I grew up around artists like Ali Balera, Ali Ben Salem and Rafiq El Kamel. For our family, it was normal to be........

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