Migrations and mobilities

Mohamedali Ltaief (Dali) and Darja Stocker, Germany/Tunisia

Mohamedali Ltaief (Dali) is a visual artist, videographer and performer. After a diploma at the Fine Arts School of Tunis, he is currently carrying out a Philosophy Master of Research at the University of Human Science in Tunis. He is one of the co-founders of the art-movement Ahl-Al-Khaf in Tunisia. The movement experimented conceptual art and urban performances during the first two years of the Tunisian "Revolution". In 2013 Ltaief startet to shoot Philosophers Republic in collaboration with the author Darja Stocker, a documentary film about the "transitional periods" that shaked the Arab countries since 2011. A fragment of Philosophers Republic is the visual core part within the performance Caliban Cannibal where Ltaief played the main male character of Caliban side by side with the Italian actress Silvia Calderoni. The performance was part of the project animale politico 2011>2068 by the Italian theater company "Motus". Caliban itself is created out of a documentary approach about the theme of exile, taking A Tempest by Aimée Cesaire as its starting point. His work has been exhibited and presented at the Maxxi, National Museum of the 21st Century Arts (Rome), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Santarcangelo dei teatri (Rimini), Black box Theater (Oslo), Biennale Spielart (Munich), amongst others.

More info: www.m-ltaief.com

Mobility of discourses, mobility of images

In Cassis, Mohamedali Ltaief undertook research on issues related to Foucault's concept of rarity and on geographic mobility, with the final goal of writing a play. The wire fences in Lampedusa (Italy) are hiding tales, images, and populist discourses around fear. They represent the new security measures of contemporary imperialism against a global multiple and mixed diaspora. War is a form of domination from a geopolitical, linguistic, and aesthetic point of view. The circulation of literary and visual objects is part of the storytelling of the contemporary world. Both the "stranger" as conceptualized by Arab philosopher Abû Hayyân al-Tawḥîdî (10th century) and Foucault's understanding of the inter-relation of the inside and the outside inhabit this work. Key questions of his project were: how discourses about fear are produced and used? How does the extreme right in Germany fashion toxic myths and stereotypes about the outsiders to the nation? How are these discourses related to the Salafi ideology around questions of fear and otherness? In their artistic approach, Mohamedali Ltaief and Darja Stocker are interested in the dominant discourses that create values, political trends, and social movements. Even though art attempts to challenge these narratives, artistic discourses often fall in the trap of reproducing or magnifying them.

Dali and Darja were in residence at the Camargo Foundation from April 6 to May 2, 2017 in partnership with the research program Goethe-Institut.