INTERFERENCE is an international light art project in the Medina of Tunis that has been realized in 2016 for the first time. Due to the collective effort of almost 200 volunteers, the Medina community, a plethora of organizations, institutions, and companies and a multitude international artists the decentral exhibition project with 42 artworks was realized. Most of the works were site- or context-specific and 16.000 visitors came to see them during the four nights of display. From September 6 to 9, 2018, the second edition of INTERFERENCE is planned to take place. We are building the team of 2018, we are looking for all kinds of resources from artists’ care and hospitality, helpful materials, tools, and technologies as well as financial support. If you want to join the team or contribute, please let us know and write an email to funding@intunis.net. Find here some notes of the artists that will join INTERFERENCE Tunis 2018 …
“The first contact with the INTERFERENCE collective during the international light art biennial EVI LICHTUNGEN in Hildesheim in January 2018 encouraged me to continue working with them. They produce a highly attractive energy around them. It is a pleasure to get the opportunity working with them in their home country for the next project. I see it as a positive sign of the always possible openness in thinking and acting between the differences of people by maintaining an over-national collaboration. Cultural, especially artistic projects lead to break not only mental borders by liberating and giving space for a very human and personal exchange on a nonspoken level. The artistic esthetic level seeks to be understood over distance, time and knowledge. INTERFERENCE will be another spot to show this. I’m glad to be part of it for the first time as it will enrich my work. During a stay of 4 months, I will try to develop a site-specific work by diving into a new, foreign surrounding. _ Anna Rosa Rupp [Artist]
“After being part of INTERFERENCE 2016 and SEE DJERBA in 2017, we are very much looking forward to another visit to Tunis. The previous experiences have been incredibly fruitful in terms of cultural exchange, creative inspiration and artistic development for us.” _ Lorenz Potthast _ XENORAMA [Artists]
“INTERFERENCE 2016 brought me to Tunis for the first time. I am deeply thankful for this experience. It gave me more than I could handle the first time around. This overflow of sensual impressions left me hungry for more, eager to get back. From the visual impact of patterns, colors, surfaces, materials and structures to the heavenly scent of spices and tea, this place made for a staggering experience. I want to go back and immerse myself in this fascinating world whose elements are highly sought-after in Europe yet fail to deliver with this kind of authenticity. You cannot recreate a place somewhere else without the people shaping their environment every day. The same people made me realize that for everything that might be different on the surface, we still share the same ideas about life and being human. This blend of worlds, thousands of miles apart, yet deeply connected made for a fascinating working environment in which I want to continue to flourish and feel part of a greater whole, a global people.” _ Kuno Seltmann [Artist]
“We are really happy that INTERFERENCE is ongoing! Since my very first stay in Tunisia in 2015 I’m always happy to come back und to follow the developing light art community in Tunisia. This project is really connecting the world with Tunisia and I hope to see all the new friends I found there again.” _ Detlef Hartung _ Hartung | Trenz [Artists]
“I am very happy and thankful for the invitation and possibility to come to Tunisia to take part in the INTERFERENCE Light Art Project. This is my first visit to this/your country about which I have heard a lot of good things. While I am curious to know your feelings and impressions, I wish to express and share mine. Regardless of differences among cultures – laughing or crying are universal emotions for all. Feelings connect us. Thanks to art we can experience what is new, different and common – intangible values I am trying to hand on in my artworks.”_ Marek Radke [Artist]
“The search of the memory that a human being shares includes a very important part in my artist activity. We live in the far-off area, and it is different religion and culture and a race, but I think that we share genesis-like common memory. I think that it is the very exiting thing making art works which is new and totally different place such as Tunisia from Japan which is an far eastern country and it is very important to my work and my theme. I am very much looking forward to participating in INTERFERENCE.” _ Ken Matsubara [Artist]
“I started in 2015 to build my links to Tunis. The first workshop “International Creative Economies” with the Goethe-Institute resulted in an amazing energy and productivity _ on the professional and on the personal level. In the meantime, I have been working in different co-operations and residencies in Germany and Tunisia. Now I am quite happy that I will join the next edition of INTERFERENCE as an artist. I will present a further development of a series of works that I started during the SEE DJERBA project in 2017.” _ Sara Foerster [Artist]
“I have been very fortunate to work already twice in Tunisia, the first time at Interference in 2016 as well as last year at SeeDjerba. Both times the people and the energy of the specific places have encouraged me to work together with Tunisians and take my work into new directions. The first time I collaborated with the wonderful Tunisian poet Liliya Ben Romdhane. The second time I included workshop participants in a performance. These collaborations have been very rich experiences. I am honored and happy to get the opportunity for another adventure in this place and its people that grew very close to my heart.” _ Ursula Scherrer [Artist]
“I am thrilled to take part INTERFERENCE this year and join a diverse group of artists to produce work for a public audience. INTERFERENCE is truly an engaging way to bring contemporary art into conversation with history, culture, and the wider public. I look forward to learning from Tunisian communities, the international artists who take part in the project, and from the city of Tunis itself!”_ Cecilia Ackerman [Artist]
The INTERFERENCE spirit will shape another edition of this wonderful festival that transforms the Medina of Tunis with light. I am so lucky and happy to go back to this interesting country transforming itself and its people. Hopefully, INTERFERENCE will create a special atmosphere that changes everyone’s lives for a few nights.” _ Lena Weisner [Artist]
“Contributing to INTERFERENCE is a challenge and a pleasure. A society in transformation is a most exciting situation for artists working in public spaces. The energy of a young generation finding forms of collaboration and expression within their society needs the arts to explore because art deals with aspects that are not yet visible and tries to make them visible. INTERFERENCE is much more a tool of exploration than a festival of entertainment. It creates situations for conclusions and discoveries for the future” _ Kurt Laurenz Theinert [Artist]
„Dear people of Tunis. I have never been in your country, even never to Arabia, to the African continent. Meeting the lovely members of the Tunisian team in Hildesheim beginning of this year showed me that there must be something wrong about this. So I will prepare my work, and pack my bags, and come over to enter a yet unknown city, country, and continent. Not as a tourist, but as an artist, a friend, a curious spectator and willing to improve my own working and life approach in a site-specific framework I have not experienced so far. With a work that is made of modest material and which is, with the power and energy of light, addressing: YOU. Hope to get in contact, this is what it’s all about!“ _ Max Sudhues [Artist]
“I was already part of INTERFERENCE in 2016 and I would like to pursue and deepen the ideas that we developed together in Tunis with the amazing collective of artists and accomplices. I felt very comfortable with the country and its people and I am now looking forward to it with the experience and the knowledge that I gained last time to conceptualize and implement a new work. Again, this will take some time!” _ Ingo Wendt [Artist]
“I am proud that art in public space can bring a sense of freedom and cultural exchange between different countries. It was already clear to me after my last experience at Interference; to see that my projections provoke someone to interact with it was amazing. Now I am even more eager to work with the Interference team of artists, curators and its public, to loose myself in the Meddina and start planting some new ideas for all of us.” _ Robert Sochacki [Artist]