I came back to Berlin carrying pieces of Tunis with me—mosaic fragments of art, life, and the kind of history that feels suspended in the air. I was invited by Archivart  to lead a two-day workshop in collaboration with Goethe Institute Tunisia:

The Art Practice | On Drawing With Light

Day One: Decolonizing the Imagination
Day Two: On the Cure in The Artist's Curse—on being an artist.


As the plane descended, I was met by a sea of blue—brushing the windows, doors, and balconies across the city with colour. Everything glitters.

I stayed in La Marsa, facing the Mediterranean, with ancient Carthage just a breath away—once Phoenician, then Roman, now a stretch of earth layered in time.

...

One afternoon, we wandered into Ez-Zitouna Mosque in the old Medina. Inside, I stood alone in a corner, listening to the prayers—and to the silence between them. They carried me to the sound of the speakers from the Dome of the Rock, to Jerusalem, where I was born.

Those who know me have often heard me say:

There must be a Jew in me, for sure a Muslim, certainly a Christian, a Buddhist—everything, and absolutely nothing.
There, all I could offer was a silent prayer for peace.
That peace everyone dies for. That peace that never comes.

… 

But the streets of the old Medina were far from quiet.
Students' voices echoed everywhere, Palestinian flags waving—flying over the same corner where, once, a Tunisian man's voice became an icon, the sound of a nation, a mirror, a moment larger than life as he shouted into the night when Ben Ali fled:

Ithararna.
Ma'adsh fi khof.
Ben Ali hrab.

We are liberated.
Fear no longer exists.
Ben Ali ran away.

Abdennaceur Aouini, an imprinted figure in Tunisia's revolution—a lawyer, activist, and always a fighter for dignity—was caught on camera shouting into the night when Ben Ali fled. His cry, aired across Al Jazeera for weeks and months, became a roar that cracked the silence of fear. His voice carried decades—maybe centuries—of pain, agony, torture, and the longing for liberation.

His cry became a wake-up call. A celebration. A trembling release. It's still one of the voices I hear deepest in my soul. By some cosmic grace, I later encountered him in the home of dear friends in Paris.

And then, on that same day, you hear of Faris Khaled—
a 21-year-old student at the Higher School of Science and Design, who fell to his death while hanging the Palestinian flag on the rooftop of his university.

His name means "The Eternal Knight."
No Tunisian—or Palestinian—will ever forget his name.

… 

On my way back from the Bardo Archaeological Museum—housed in a stunning palace and home to one of the largest collections of Roman mosaics in the world—I was headed to a gathering of artists at photographer Hichem Driss's studio in La Marsa.

But first, I was granted the full Tunisian taxi experience. A 45-minute ride that makes you wonder: seatbelt or not—you pray either way.

The studio itself felt like an archaeological site—layered, luminous, full of images and objects that demanded time, presence, attention. We gathered—artists, photographers—each carrying their own vision of Tunis. Not the postcard version. Not the history book. But the lived city: fragmented, felt, reassembled through the lens.

I spoke a little about my own journey.
But mostly, I listened. I looked. At the way they framed silence. Shadows. Streets. Identity.
Tunis, refracted. Tunis, reimagined.
And in that space, I saw again what art can do.
Even when life feels stuck,
the artists are moving.

…

Over the course of the week, I began to feel the mosaic expand.
From Archivart, who tirelessly supports young artists through their gallery space with a heartfelt vision— to established galleries like Selma Feriani Gallery, to Le Violon Bleu in Sidi Bou Said—nestled in blue and white, helping shape the international visibility of Arab artists. There was also B7L9, the contemporary art space founded by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation—an institution with a bold, future-facing vision, charting new possibilities for art in the region. And then, the visit to Héla Ammar's studio—intimate, grounded, a space where stories were layered into the walls, and where the personal met the social and political with grace and force.

…

The mosaic of Tunis is not just beauty—it's sorrow and strength fused together.
If Tunis is now a fragment in the mosaic of my life,
it is made of light—spirit painted blue,
a landscape alive with yearning,
and people who want to walk forward, always.
Even through hardship. Even through heartbreak.
There, you learn: as long as one Tunisian imagines a better Tunis,
everyone else gets a better chance.

…

Before leaving, I stocked up on gifts—an assortment of sweets from Pâtisserie Madame Hachicha,
spicy harissa that, by then, had officially made me a local,
and three litres of Rebiaa Olive Oil, harvested at the foot of Rebyaa Hill in Jendouba.
This golden oil is something else:
exquisite, pure, made with love and memory.
It tastes like what it means to stay rooted.
To fight with nature, not against it.
To pass down care from one generation to the next.

And just as I turned the key to leave, not yet ready to say goodbye, this message arrived from one of the participants:

"Thank you for the amazing Masterclass. It was a journey worth living and an important starting point for me personally. The impact you left behind will live forever—and give life too."

That is the only real outcome that matters—
and, for me, the greatest reward.