The kinstitute is an artistic fabulation, questioning, imagining and co-creating new forms of environmental justice through artistic, juridical, ritualistic and restorative justice practices.
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Sebkhet Sejoumi

Active relationship with Sebkhet Sejoumi between April 2021 - 23**
In collaboration with Dream City Festival, L'art Rue / supported by BEPART and Gulbenkian foundation

A PACT WITH WATERS - COMMONING WITH SEJOUMI - October 2023

Day 1 Sejoumi Guardians Agora - An encounter between citizens and Sejoumi guardians to exchange and grow alliances of of care, restoration and action and to introduce the statement for the rights of Sejoumi

Day 2 An alliance with trees - A sensorial and juridical gathering between olive trees, a fertile shelter that resisted the deep transformation of the lake, where we nourished and weaved kin alliances amongst Sejoumi allies.

Day 3 A Shelter, an offering. Together while chanting songs of care, we carried and celebrate the landscape and wishes to build a symbolic observatory and sanctuary for its birds and waters.

Photograph credits: @ hichem_azafazf and pol_guillard Dream city
Credits:
Creation: Natural Contract Lab, activated by Maria lucia Cruz Correia, Margarida Mendes, Marine Calmet
Artistic assistant and community liaison: Cyrine Gherissi
Project coordinator: Clemence Herault
Eco-scenography design: Aziz Romdhani in collaboration with Nabil Essaoui (responsable of Podium Artistique à Sidi Hssine)
Eco-scenography making: Houssem Kendil, Mohamed Slim Jelassi, Riadh Mastouri, Noa Jacquin, Jeanne Berger
Architect, designer and set consultant: Tom Egoumenides
In collaboration with:
Réseau Enfants De La Terre, the Association "Les Amis des Oiseaux" (AAO) Arab Institute for Human Rights - المعهد العربي لحقوق الانسان Association Podium Artistique جمعية المنصة الفنية للثقافة و الفنون, the Regional Commissioner for Agricultural Development, the women of Hay Hlel, Association At Moussanada and Podium Artistique à Sidi Hssine.

Gratitude to the guardians of Sejoumi: Imen Labidi (RET), Radhia Louhichi (RET), Nabila Khlifi (teacher), Nabil Aissaoui (President of Artistic Podium), Claudia Feltrup-Azafzaf (AAO), Hichem Azafzaf (AAO), Awatef Mabrouk (gender and climate change sociologist), Amira Chokri, Adel Azouni (geologist), Maher Ben Abdallah ( Urbaniste), Souhir Amamo (paysagiste) , Baligh Hamdi ( Agriculteur), Sarra Bachtouli ( eaux) Mohamed Ben Khedhiri, Nabil Essaoui (responsable of Podium Artistique à Sidi Hssine) Baha gammoudi, Dorsaf Yaakoubi and the women of Hay Hlel.

ACTIVATION OCTOBER 2022
What kind of schools do we need as a gesture of care for the Sebkhet Sejoumi ? Do we need other ways of justice, interconnectedness and stewardship? How do we reinvent together new notions of guardians of Sebkhet Sejoumi?

Together with the local organisations, Réseau Enfants De La Terre and Les Amis des Oiseaux (AAO). We set up a temporary pedagogical station in Sebkha Sejoumi. The program was an exchange with the lake and its kin, with initiatives engaged on the protection of the lake, with local community and with Dream city festival audiences. The intention of the school was to experience the lake differently and to an hear ecocide plea to open the imagination for new forms of justice for Séjoumi. On the school you could learn more about ecocide, rights of nature and the role of guardians of nature. And as activities there were moments of listening, walking, singing and a final moment to taste the perfumes and flavors of the land activated by femmes locales et artisanes de Séjoumi.

At the Khaldounia Library, Medina of Tunis

Conference with the crossed views of the environmental lawyer Marine Calmet, the sociologist and specialist in gender and climate change Awatef Mabrouk and the visual artist Bochra Taboubi on our relationship with Nature and the new ways to reintegrate the community of the Living.With the participation of Imen Labidi, project manager at AAO/Birdlife in Tunisia on the subject "Sebkhet Sejoumi the neglected treasure".

Moderated by Ichrak Klai, lawyer and columnist of the Eco friendly programme on Misk radio.

At the University of Political and Social Juridical Sciences of Tunis

Meeting/debate with the jurist Marine Calmet (Natural Contract Lab) and the activist Alaa Marzougui (General Coordinator of the Tunisian Water Observatory - Nomade 08 Association Project) to discuss the rights of nature and propose concrete tools for students to act in turn. With the participation of the Earth'Na collective and Imen Labidi, project manager at AAO/Birdlife in Tunisia on the subject "Sebkhet Sejoumi the neglected treasure".

Residency April 2021
Field research together with Mascha Euchner-Martinez, Naomi and Amal.

walking on the shelter for migrating flamingos
hearing voices of hybrid species and queering waters
fuzzy waters and flamingos
touching stones that held ancient knowings
listening to the fuzzy waters voiced by militancy, resistance and incapability of changing.

Mud, waste, trash, swampy, salt, species inequality,
anarchic housing, dumping sites next to hospitals
Draught spreading and persisting through out the country
A journalist told me the other day " ether you burn your self on fire or no one will hear you"
water sources are disrupted with mining
communities fighting for a healthy environment
many known yet many unknown

Listening to Salicornia, a succulent being able to reduce pollution and increase water flow
Listening, to Quinoa, that neutralizes salinization on the super dry lands
listening to footsteps, my ears to the ground
asking as we walk

listening to the water and fishes infiltrated by micro-plastics,
listening to the resilient plants striving to any kind of weather condition
listening to the plastic bags flying in the wind and nesting in the trees
Someone told me here that you can't think of rights of nature without thinking the rights of women. Silvia Federici, says " we need to center on the idea of the commons
which involves all of the things that go towards creating the conditions for living, foregrounding the centrality of care."

Resist, unite, win.

@pragma studio

On the ancestral land of Al-Huaydeh, we listen to the main source of water,
known as “tender mother” [Al Omm Lahnina],
This source has been disrupted by mining extraction.
We walk together with Moncef Houaidi, the guardian of Al-Huaydeh waters
from the source towards the mining zone
Article 44 of Tunisian of the constitution guarantees the right to water.
Moncef Houaidi share with us the resilient occupation of the community.
As he say "Resist, unite, win!"
How to transform protest into a place of care, theater and politics?
They occupied the entrance of the mining company for as along as they could, the whole community was gathering
women drinking tea sharing food, children playing theatre and watching outdoor cinema, together sharing views on politics and finding ways of resisting the company.
They stayed until the company resumed its activity, and stop the working on the land.
Today they are waiting for the court decision to conclude case and rise together on the protection of their sacred water.