INTERFERENCE is an international exhibition project dedicated to contemporary art featuring light and light-based media. It takes place in various sites throughout the Medina of Tunis and attracts large and diverse audiences.
In a country where there are only a few art associations, foundations, galleries, and museums committed to contemporary art, INTERFERENCE is an initiative of civil society that hosts art in public space. We believe that a democratic society needs opportunities to experience art, to see and feel it, to ask questions and to learn about it, and to be part of the discussion and critical debate. Art experience and understanding, art mediating and reviewing, curating, and artistic production are organic parts of our intellectual tissue, and we love to juggle with multi-faceted frameworks and transversal settings because we believe that they are essentials of a democratic and peaceful society in a healthy habitat.
Since the beginning of 2016, the INTERFERENCE initiative linked enthusiasm for contemporary art, collective engagement, and educational programs to stage a contemporary art project in the Medina of Tunis. One of the leading ideas is to deepen the link with this unique cultural heritage environment by allowing interaction, engagement, and discussion via contemporary art. Students and young professionals of all backgrounds responded to the initiative of the curatorial tandem of Aymen Gharbi and Bettina Pelz. Supported by experienced artists, locally and internationally, we grew into a community that cares for ideas, learns what is needed, and successfully established a biennial public art project. The year-round activities in the background generated an open community that continues to enjoy living, learning, and working collectively. Through meeting local and international artists, and engaging with visitors from the neighborhood and from around the world. INTERFERENCE helps us understand the world we are living in and provides us with tools to change it for the better.
The INTERFERENCE Community is a strong multiplicator of information and acts as a magnet for large audiences. Around 200 accomplices are involved in getting the exhibition project on the way, and they bring their families, friends, and colleagues to share the INTERFERENCE experience. In 2018, 20.000 visitors came to see the international exhibition project resulting from each visitor either talking to an accomplice, seeing a post on social media, or visiting our website. We will strengthen this interaction with our audience and develop new onsite and online formats to see, discuss, and further INTERFERENCE together.
Our communication tools are our website, different social media channels, a digital map with embedded information to navigate the project, posters that indicate sites, and a navigation system to find the sites. We are a dedicated ZERO TRACE project and don’t produce printed materials for one-time use.
INTERFERENCE happens by a collective effort, initiated by few, cared for by many. The entire system works resource-oriented, we grow when and where we find support. Any kind of support is welcomed, we need cooperation, helpful materials, shared knowledge, dedicated time, working spaces, hospitality support, communication, and finances. Together is the only way we can do it.