Before the 14th, instant tunisien
Archives of the tunisian revolution
Mucem, fort Saint-Jean—
Galerie haute des Officiers
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From Wednesday 20 March 2019 to Monday 30 September 2019
On 14 January 2011, President Ben Ali fled Tunisia after twenty-three years of absolute authority. This was the culmination of a process that had begun twenty-nine days earlier when on 17 December 2010, a young street vendor from the town of Sidi Bouzid set himself on fire in a desperate act of protest against a rigid and corrupt system that would quickly engulf the whole country ...
The Tunisian revolution is an unprecedented revolution on a number of counts. In the age of digital communication, it launched the marriage of new technologies and the street, introducing a new type of mobilization, new means of political action, and new types of artistic expression.
The exhibition retraces the twenty-nine days of the Tunisian revolution from the spark set off in Sidi Bouzid to the fall of President Ben Ali. It is based on a vast archive made up of videos, photos, blogs, sound recordings, and also poems, slogans, songs, and civil society dispatches – all collected by the Doustourna network in collaboration with several Tunisian national public institutions.
The Mucem, which has been involved from the outset of this collection, presents the results of this work further to the exhibition that took place at the musée national du Bardo.
—Curator : Houria Abdelkafi, independent curator, Elisabeth Cestor, deputy head of the department for cultural development and public engagement at the Mucem
—Graphic creation and scenography : Géraldine Fohr and Renaud Perrin
—Exhibition coordinator : Agathe Salgon
Exhibition realized with the collective in charge of the collect and the archiving of the digital and documentary heritage of the Tunisian revolution
In collaboration with 14th 
In collaboration with the Ministry of Cultural Affairs
In collaboration with the French institute 
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Interview with Houria Abdelkafi and Elisabeth Cestor, exhibition curators
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Mucem (M.) This exhibition is largely based on videos, notably filmed using cellphones during the events of the Tunisian revolution. Does this illustrate the key role played by social networks and digital media in the revolutionary process?
Elisabeth Cestor (E.C.) Indeed. Social networks played a key role, particularly with respects to information, because the official medias reported very little on the progress of the revolution. Also, if many people filmed the events, it was to be able to testify as to the violence and repression and to keep records and evidence that could be useful in the event of legal proceedings. These images, which were then widely broadcast on the Internet and on channels such as Al Jazira and France 24, gave the revolution a worldwide platform.
Houria Abdelkafi (H.A.) The videos are one of the – let us say 'live' – elements of the exhibition. They enable the atmosphere and breath of events to be stored and they give flesh to the story. They testify to this need of the individual to keep a record of what happens. Yes, communication technologies played this amplifying role. They helped put Tunisia on the world stage and make its voice heard.
(M.) Can we say that the Tunisian revolution marks the large-scale entry of digital archives into historical research?
(E.C.) We must remember here the key role played by the French researcher, Jean-Marc Salmon. While working on the revolution, he realized that a large number of images and videos posted on the Internet when the events were taking place, were disappearing. It was therefore necessary to save this record. He conducted an on-site investigation, which resulted in the book 29 jours de Révolution : Histoire du soulèvement tunisien (29 days of Revolution: History of the Tunisian uprising). Tunisians then took over: a collective was formed to collect a maximum number of images, with it going on to receive support from national institutions. This is how this digital archiving project was born and to prevent this story from being lost, rewritten, distorted, or used as a tool for another purpose.
(H.A.) Such a process of building a digital archive is exceptional and it has already been taken up elsewhere, with other collectives preserving perishable testimonies in a similar fashion. The exhibition thus sets itself the task of exploring new pathways as to how history is perceived, seizing its immediacy, and forged with a raw material that itself is derived from informal, alternative sources where subjectivity is an important aspect ...
(M.) How were these sources assembled?
(H.A.) It was a long process: the training of investigators, the creation of documents, contacting citizen-player-witnesses from the Rapport de l’Instance d’investigation sur les violations et les dépassements (Report of the Investigative Body on Violations and Abuses), dubbed the "Bouderbala Commission".
With the concern of wanting to provide additional information to audiovisual documents, recordings were made, testimonies by the families of martyrs were recorded, forms were drawn up, and ID sheets for digital documents, including authorship data, were written up. This set of documents is kept in the Archives nationales de Tunisie, which proceeded to view the 1,100 videos and as many photos, then dating, authenticating, archiving, and backing these up. This collecting work is still in progress.
(E.C.) The authentication and dating of these videos were particularly difficult. It was necessary, for example, to identify those that came from montages that distorted the facts. Also, using a very precise examination of the images (eg, the shadows on the ground), a piece of software allowed the progress of the demonstrators to be traced hour by hour. Lastly, this exhibition is a way to pay tribute to the huge task involved in the archiving of the sources of the revolution.
(M.) Beyond the digital archives, the exhibition also presents caricatures, graffiti, slogans, and songs, that accompanied the movement ...
(H.A.) In order to offer a vision that is as rich and complete as possible of events, the content of the exhibition interweaves and superimposes different elements, each bringing a new bit understanding. By making free speech possible, the revolution became a source of inspiration for all types of creative work.
(E.C.)
For instance, we can point to the caricatures of Nadia Khiari, who drew the famous cat, Willis from Tunis, which became one of the symbols of the revolution. It was her way of participating in the events. Some invented slogans, others made videos ... Each engaged in their own way.
The exhibition also presents an audio work specially made for the project, la Grande clameur (the Great Clamour) – a piece of sensory immersion that rounds off the evocation of the 29 days of the revolution. Sourced from archives, this consciously saturated soundtrack restores this atmosphere that is so particular, this collective energy hurtling through cities and villages. It ends with the cry of a man in a state of near-delusional, alone in the city under curfew: "Ben Ali has fled! Ben Ali has fled! "
(M.) Eight years after the revolution, where is Tunisia at today?
(E.C.) Everything is still very fragile. Tunisia has certainly succeeded in its revolution, but it is not immune to new upheavals. The economic and social situation remains particularly sensitive and new self-immolations have taken place recently ... 2019 should be a turning point because legislative and presidential elections are planned.
Partners and sponsors
Partners : France Médias Monde et Courrier international
