From September 26 to 30 will be held at the Medina of Tunis as in that of Sfax, the 3rd edition of the artistic and cultural event Dream City. This biennial of contemporary art on public space and whose concept, original, is based on the principles of the proximity of the citizen, of art for all, and of the magic junction between the social categories is this year confronted with some difficulties.
The first, major, is that of security. We can already imagine the general atmosphere a little bit when we read this question in the presentation text of the demonstration: “At a time when artists are threatened even in their flesh, can we still dream of our world? ».
The artists have known (and still know) difficult moments in a society where we discover the emergence of a certain fringe hostile to artistic expression. There is no shortage of examples; The incidents of the Africart, those of the International Theater Day, the infamous exhibition of the Abdellia, the One_man Show of Lotfi Abdelli, the Sweet Song recital and so on.
The repeated assaults against the artists have not discouraged them, and the 2012 edition of Dream City arises as a challenge to be met by the artists themselves, and they express it:
“Rather than lamenting on their fate, the artists of Dream City 2012 answer the question of” the artist in the face of freedoms “by the story and the imaginary. Their participatory and contextualized proposals are like a force of struggle and reconciliation of a fractured company. The artists have chosen to share their creation codes in order to give all the tools of a singular reading to each and exclude all the drifts of meaning. The public is not in “a waiting horizon” (around the beautiful, the gesture …) but participates in the meaning of the artistic proposals partly avoiding “a possible aesthetic fracture” or an instrumentalization of the artistic gesture. The artists fight against all forms of reinterpretation and re-information, one of the privileged instruments of the dominant order. »»
Nevertheless, the security question arises, whether the artists really expose themselves to threats, especially since Dream City is played in an open environment with easy access. Have the authorities provided for special provisions for this event to take place in good conditions and without incident? Have there been any particular precautions taken by the artists themselves to protect themselves from possible assaults and protect their facilities?
The second difficulty in overcoming is that of the unhealthiness of the medina: a small tour in its alleys will make you disgust any activity: heap of garbage that is piling up in all street corners, gaping sewer, monceaux of sites of construction sites, not to mention sellers on the rescue that settle and go on, in several places, the arteries of the old town.
But the biggest challenge remains that of crowds. Tunisians, with all their daily worries in addition to their great concern for the “uncertain” future of their country, and palpable tension in society, do they still have a taste for art? Will they be motivated to wander the streets and alleys of the Medina and have fun, according to the shows and the installations offered? Dream City who wants to be a demonstration of the street above all and for the street will she manage to reach a large number of Tunisians or will it be, like most cultural manifestations, the prerogative of a privileged intellectual elite?
The organizers, the partners and the artists of Dream City gave themselves all the means so that this edition was a real success, a long path has been traveled, a major challenge, that of defeating fear, has been taken up and they hope to share these “manifest” moments with the greatest number of visitors, hope that the intrinsic difficulties of the 2012 vintage are also overcome, and that the party begins!
