Hivos presents: The Resistance Climate and Art Festival
September 27, 2023
Join Hivos next week in the Tunisian city of Gabes. Known for its oasis, Gabes will host dozens of artists during the Resistance Climate and Art Festival, which is organized between October 1 and 7.
Art allows us to talk about important things in new ways. Sometimes, art can say much more than a collection of facts and numbers. During the festival, participants will therefore showcase their work and will discuss the meaning of climate justice.
Below are some highlights of the festival.
Why Gabes
It is not a coincidence that the we’re hosting the festival in the city of Gabes. Its oasis has sustained life for thousands of years. Now, with the modern town being home to heavy industry, the oasis and the environment around it have become polluted.
At the same time, cement and petrochemical factories are using up precious water for their production processes, leaving not enough for local communities.
The story of pollution in Gabes and the way local communities are resorting to traditional methods of restoring the environment is examined Mabrouk Jebri’s documentary L’agroécologie dans l’oasis de Chenini. The film will be screened at the festival. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Jebri.
What: Screening of L’agroécologie dans l’oasis de Chenini
When: Wednesday October 4
Where: Oasis Chenini
Climate Justice and Gabes
For Hivos, any definition of Climate Justice, within the context of city of Gabes, should at least include these three points:
- Everyone needs to have access to clean water, energy and food
- Large-scale industry needs to stop polluting the people’s oasis
- The energy transition needs to include, not harm, local communities
Join the artists at the festival, either physically or digitally, to learn about the ways in which they interpret climate justice. You can find some initiatives on this page, but there is much more. So keep any eye out for further updates!
Dirty Dancing
In the week prior to the art festival, our partner Danseurs Citoyens Sud organized an art bootcamp. Artists from different disciplines came together with the goal of amplifying the voices of people that suffer from pollution in Tunisia. The artists followed workshops on climate justice and had conversations about the polluted environment with local people from in and around Gabes.
Looking to learn more? Come see our artists perform at the festival.
What: Dirty Dancing
When: Sunday October 1
Where: No Name Space gallery
The Power of Art
Fifteen talented students from the Art School of the Tunisian city Sousse have spent the previous weeks working with our partner Collectif Créatif making stunning artworks about climate (in)justice.
Come see these artworks and get to meet their makers. We will discuss the challenges around capturing climate justice, a concept as complex as important. Come see how they managed to pull it off, through canvas, film and performance
What: The Power of Art
When: Thursday October 5
Where: Oasis Chenini
Tunisian Wealth
The Tunisian phosphate mining town Metlaoui is not known for its paleontological heritage. This is because the wealth of fossilized flora and fauna, which were buried in its soil, was lost due to decades of human extraction. How would these real natural riches have looked? In her exhibition Cluster of Matter, Bochra Taboubi attempts to answer this question. Through drawings, installations and videos she imagines what could have been, had our definition of wealth been broader.
What: Cluster of Matter
When: Friday October 6 and Saturday October 7
Where: No Name Space gallery
