Sensing the next battle: An overshadowed prehistory of creative dissent in Tunisia

Abstract

When analysing the Tunisian uprising through its aesthetics, the premonitory and subversive agency of the artistic sphere becomes intelligible. This contribution, therefore, engages in a reconstruction of an often overlooked local and historical sequence of aesthetic contention and asks if this sequence prefigured the Tunisian uprising. This seditious premonitory subversion grew into a generalized practice as it emerged into full daylight during the liberation phase of the uprising as an important mediator of the fundamental changes the country was taking itself through. The specific practices that structured the aesthetics of Tunisian uprising were thus already formed a decade before the self-immolation of Tarek el-Tayeb Mohammed Bouazizi. This insight is not only fruitful in relation to the ongoing debates reconstructing the historical dynamics that preceded the revolution, but also gives important insights into the visionary subversive dynamics the artistic sphere is still engaging in today, maybe sensing the next battle coming.