On 24, 25 and 26 October 2019, the University of Tunis held an international academic conference at the Cité des Sciences in Tunis, titled “The Visual Arts in Tunisia: Generational Paths, Aesthetic and Cultural Stakes”. Placed under the high patronage of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the event brought together researchers, artists and art critics around collective memory and the path taken by the country’s modern and contemporary visual arts.
An international conference under the ministry’s high patronage
Under the high patronage of Slim Khalbous, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the president of the University of Tunis, Habib Sidhom, invited researchers, artists and cultural figures to take part in this international academic conference devoted to the visual arts in Tunisia. The gathering ran on 24, 25 and 26 October 2019, at the Cité des Sciences in Tunis.
Collective memory and the path of the Tunisian visual arts
To deepen research into the question of collective memory and into Tunisia’s cultural and artistic present, the conference gathered Tunisian and foreign researchers to study the great historical stages that shaped the path of modern and contemporary visual arts in Tunisia — an approach that extends the thinking pursued elsewhere on the great artistic movements of the 20th century.
This landmark meeting also drew artists, journalists, art critics and eminent cultural figures, who came to give their testimony and to help write the national history of the visual arts. The conference set out to bring together every member of the Tunisian visual arts family and, above all, to gather scientific and documentary research material — an ambition that meets the questions raised around Tunisian craft trades and the safeguarding of their heritage.
Where to find the conference programme
A website was made available so the public could consult the full programme of the three days. This ambition to document scientifically belongs to a wider movement to safeguard Tunisian cultural heritage and tell its story, much like the work carried out around the Ennajma Ezzahra palace.
