Political, aesthetic, and ethical positions of Tunisian women artists, 2011–13

The work of women artists such as Safia Farhat, the only woman in the artists’ group l'Ecole de Tunis, testifies to the rupture with colonial art that began during the 1940s and that became the central orientation of art training in the Arab world since independence. This paper will show how the Arab Spring has seen an explosion of radically new artistic expression where women artists in Tunisia during the period 2011–13 and using forms such as documentary film, installations, cartoons, posters, and photographs, produce a new socio-critical discourse in the context of a ‘democratic transition’. While extending the work undertaken by pioneering women artists, contemporary creators like Nadia Jelassi, Aicha Filali, Nadia El Fani, Sonia Chamekh, and others in Tunisia, denounce both Salafi discourse and state feminism. This paper will focus on the work of several women artists to show the evolution from expressing marginal or oppositional views to political positions central to debates over the transition, as well as on the controversy and discussion that these have engendered, all of which has contributed to enriching public debate over freedom of conscience and expression in the region.