They can go swimming in the sea أنا بعشق البحر

They can go swimming in the sea, أنا بعشق البحر
Ancient cistern, machines from the Center and their debris, ropes, braiding of plant fibers,
various materials, led lights, sound.
Sound creation: DON PAC.

They can go swimming in the sea أنا بعشق البحر, is a sound installation primarily composed of
debris from old washing and carpet-cleaning machines, along with old ropes of various
diameters and elements from plant fibers. Recovered from the exhibition site, these relic
machines and strings are repainted, adorned with various pipes, and lit with a blue-green
light, evoking the polluted depths of aquatic environments impacted by human activity and
extractive industries. Artist and composer DON PAC collaborated on a dystopian fiction
where Tunisian islands are deserted due to rising sea levels, once again transformed into
lands of exile. The remains of these living machines narrate the story of exiled communities
and the echoes of a submerged world. Ropes of natural fibers and palm-leaf weavings,
anchored in the bodies of the metal wrecks and their openings, move as tangible testimonies
of a vanished or disappearing craft and the living that emerges and asserts its rights.
Through the processes of recovery, recycling, transformative presentation and collective
mythologies, the artist highlights contemporary ecological challenges from a dreamlike
perspective.

Exhibition view. Hirafen group show. Denden, 3T Center. Tunis. 2023
© Nicolas Fauqué
Artwork produced by Talan, Tunis, as part of the exhibition Hirafen, from November 4, 2023,
to March 20, 2024.