Joachim Ben Yakoub

Combining key insights from aesthetic theory and various postcolonial critiques, this research looks into the aesthetics of revolt. Taking the recent and exceptional sequences of revolts in Tunisia as a case study and thus starting from an extensive and unique fieldwork, it follows the aesthetic turn in political science and wants to contribute to the further development of an epistemologically more self-conscious and recognizable academic field of study that engages with aesthetics, politics and revolt in the region, the continent and beyond in the Global South. By unraveling contrapuntally the complex entanglement of processes concerning the politicization of aesthetics and the aestheticization of politics, revolting senses show how state aesthetics are always historically formed and how the sensible, or that what can be seen, imagined or embodied, is consequently shared, divided and distributed, but also how accumulated aesthetic agency can question and possibly alter this shared distribution in times of revolt. Attention is directed on the aesthetics of revolt, especially on the visible and corporeal or embodied qualities of sense experience. This study apprehends revolt in a phenomenological way as a lived, embodied and visual experience and thus as a process of diversion or reappropriation of spectacular power. It contends that revolt has the potential to alter a given police order, its properties of space and possibilities of time, to re-determine the distribution of the roles and modes of participation, its dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and thus to restructure the shared division of the sensible. Nevertheless, the often too precipitated contentions that the moving body politic would have radically altered the order of the sensible, during the latest sequences of revolt in Tunisia, is altogether tempered. This dissertation points at the intricacies that accompany the processes of revolt against a firmly seated police order, especially the difficulty of creating different conditions of intelligibility and possibility that entail a fundamental transformation of what appears to sense experiences. These particular intricacies could somehow have been foreseen as aesthetics was explicitly grasped as a historically formed contrapuntal ensemble or as an all-encompassing realm that is made of different intermeshed, overlapping, and mutually embedded histories traversed by a colonial divide.

The authoritarian regime in Tunisia can be defined as an intensive bio-political regime where disciplinary techniques of surveillance and governmentality are entangled with sovereign logics of exceptionality and decisionism. Authority and power is woven through every aspect of everyday life and to exceptional instances of the power over life and death. Within a bio-political imperative the body must constantly be managed, governed and controlled. The body is therefore at the same time the strongest medium to enact protest In this light we can read the self-sacrifice of the different martyrs during the liberation phase of revolution as a potent symbol of disruption of the expected cooperation of the body within bio-political power, that allowed for the appearance of the people in all its complexity and diversity, including the life of the most disenfranchised. Comparing the performances of Fanni Roghman Anni and Danseuers Citoyen, two different collectives that emerged during the revolution, the performance of self-sacrifice will further be analyzed as a condition for the coming into being of a necro-political space of appearance. Not only the bodies in the street but additional embodied artistic performances during the constitutive phase of the revolution produce extra-discursive effects outside the bio-political logic, that allowed to further engage in fundamental ethical question in the future constitution of new post-revolutionary body politic.

The spatial dynamics were difficult to overlook during the 2011 movements of revolt in Tunisia, pushing the damned in the center of public attention in the concerted effort of turning prevailing authoritarian politics inside-out. Venturing in the spatial contestation central in these revolts, the mesmerizing occupation and re-appropriation of symbolic places, such as the Kasbah Square or Bourguiba Avenue took center stage. These movements of occupation and re-appropriation of spatial power produced momentous heuristic enclaves of another order, projecting dreams of a renewed inclusive free and dignified body politic. Based on a long-term research in the field of visual arts in Tunisia between 2011 and 2017 and the combination of various postcolonial critiques, this article demonstrates the way in which violent processes of destruction preceding these processes of re-appropriation and occupation are too often overlooked. Police stations, the presidential personality cult and the private estate of the authoritarian regime are identified and treated as spatial nodes that maintain the compartmentalization and fragmentation of urban space in place. Moreover, by including in the analysis the often-omitted Islamist occupation and reappropriation of mosques and public space contesting the ongoing constitutional political dynamics, this article elucidates why the revolutionary process failed in the production of a long aspired liberated and dignifying space, as the revolutionary re-appropriation of these symbolic nodes of power was not included in any political agenda.

The afterlives of a monstrous colonial monument are being contested in the heart of Belgium. Engaging in a visual analysis of the PeoPL happening, facilitated by artivist Laura Nsengiyumva, I will argue that this visual proposition is witness to a renewed wave of revolt, altering a still very present colonial order, its vibrant properties of space and possibilities of time. By melting down an ice-reproduction of the equestrian statue of Leopold II, Nsengiyumva renders visible the lingering possibility to restructure the shared division of the sensible proper to the colonial present of Belgium and beyond. This wave of revolt opened a discursive space that altered the conditions through which difference was historically thematised. From (failed) multiculturalism, diversity, superdiversity and the present turn in securitisation through the misnomer of radicalisation, processes of inclusion/exclusion are for the first time in history being discussed on the conditions of the primary concerned

In the wake of a plethora of colonial and imperial monument ceremonialized destructions, the demolition of the Vendôme Column by the Paris Commune appears as paradigmatic. Joachim Ben Yakoub reflects on this key event, and on three recent artworks inspired by it.

Adil Charrot, Lamine Bangoura, Mehdi Bouda, Dieumerci Kanda, Mawda Shawri, Semira Adamu. Dit waren enkele van de namen om wie gerouwd werd door meer dan 15.000 mensen, gemobiliseerd voor de waardigheid van zwarte levens in het hart van Europa, in juni 2020. De verontwaardiging over de moord op George Floyd en Breonna Taylor
door de Amerikaanse politie vond weerklank in Brussel. Het straatnaambordje van de ‘Lloyd George Avenue’ aan de rand van het Zoniënwoud, werd omgedoopt tot ‘F-Loyd George’. Woede en verontwaardiging convergeerden tegen het steeds zichtbaarder wordende dodelijke politiegeweld tijdens de COVID-19 lockdown en het nog steeds
levendige structurele racisme, de negrofobie en de islamofobie in het politiekorps en in de brede maatschappij. De mobilisatie op straat maakte niet alleen een diepgaand proces van politisering van bestaande grassroots antiracistische inspanningen mogelijk, maar leidde ook tot wat Norman Ajari (2020) een golf van “dekoloniaal iconoclasme” noemde. Van de koloniale settler staten van Amerika, Canada, Zuid-Afrika over Nieuw Zeeland en Australië tot in het hart van het Europees Imperialisme: protesten braken de polis in twee. De eisen voor zwarte levens werden spontaan
aangevuld met een collectieve versnelling van monumentale interventies, waardoor een diepgaand maatschappelijk antagonisme zichtbaar werd voorbij de klassieke oppositie tussen links en rechts. De helden die door sommigen worden vereerd, lijken inderdaad de ‘genocidairen’ van de anderen.

During the latest uprising in Tunisia, the agitated crowd almost totally destroyed the autocratic monumental landscape. As the provocative ‘Anti-Clock Project’ by visual artist Nidhal Chamekh shows, the strongest element of this landscape was not destroyed; it still stands in the capital today and illustrates how the imbricated strata of the contemporary monumental landscape can be understood as an inherited palimpsest that reveals hegemonic assumptions about the prevailing politics of time. The monumental translation of the new era promoted by the contested Ben Ali regime paradoxically froze the idea that change would facilitate general progress, innovation, modernization and development and guarantee a better future. In this article, we argue that the Clock Tower and the civilization project it materializes, initiated by colonial occupation and upheld by the consecutive postcolonial regimes, does not necessarily warrant a better future. Rather, it continues to restrain political sensibilities in the present time, dismisses historical pasts and withholds alternative futures.

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.

When making sense of the world from the vantage point of
the global south, and from Tunisia in particular, a direct line
can be drawn from the revolts of 1968 to the recent series of
uprisings that shook the world in 2011. Both form discrete
turning points in a continuous struggle for an “unfinished
independence”. Time and again, however, the claims for
liberation and dignity embodied and enunciated in these
worldwide struggles, are caught in a web of Eurocentric
readings. It therefore remains crucial to point at the
fundamental differences between 1968 in Tunis and 1968 in
Paris, as did philosophers like Michel Foucault and Albert
Memmi. Exposing the historical tensions between Tunis and
Paris in 1968, but also in 2011, from the perspective of theglobal south, will hopefully facilitate the vital insight
why the recent demands to “occupy Tunis” might seem
superfluous in the light of the latest demand to “decolonize Wall street”.

Researcher Joachim Ben Yakoub claims that people and places are more intertwined than some would have us to believe. Borders are subjective, dynamic and porous and cannot always be so sharply defined. He argues for the necessary reconfiguration of the way we make sense of the relations between ‘here’ and ‘there’’. He also re-considers the complex and sometimes painful histories with which local and international dynamics are strongly interlaced, and/or colored. More and more artists and curators are engaging in a fundamental reconfiguration of existing transnational connections. They are taking the initiative, unfolding different relations between the different places they inhabit and where they are active. In his essay The Dream Collaboration, Joachim Ben Yakoub illustrates this with Sofiane and Selma Ouissi's online dance performance Here(s), which takes simultaneously place in real time in Paris and it former colony Tunis, and their Dream City festival in the Medina of Tunis.

The Tunisian revolution not only liberated the country of its tenacious autocratic ruler, it also impacted, in a profound way, the imagination of prevailing subjectivities. The proposed paper will deal with this collective dynamic of becoming, from the objective existence of a passive ‘population’ into the subjective self-consciousness of an active ‘people’. Through an iconological analysis of this process, we will show how the contested regime projected its power and on the other hand describe the processes of polysemic transformation this stringent projection underwent, from 2010 until today. Starting from an extensive online exploration and several fieldtrips, an iconographic database was created to understand the struggle over the formation of shared imagined political subjectivities.  In a second phase a network of directly concerned and expert informants were interviewed to refine our findings. Central in this fieldwork were the lively processes of reversal, appropriation and rejection, the image of the national flag underwent. The proposed grounded iconological analysis, will shed light on how the latest processes of transformation pushed, in vain, the discussion on shifting subjectivities on a global scale, coloring outside the lines of the nation.  The scrutinized iconographic transformation, made visible new trans-national relationalities, rejecting post-colonial interventions and recalling the caliphate. By analyzing the politics behind the ongoing iconic transformation, we will however argue that post-revolutionary democratization dynamics imposed, just like its autocratic predecessor, an essentialized image of the Tunisian nation and put a halt to renewed subject formations and processes of becoming. By doing so, the current Tunisian “success-story”, not only failed to take into account long-term relationalities, but also lost the possibility to re-imagine politics globally and therefore to fulfill the people’s will to regain liberty and dignity.

The censorship and strict regulation of the public sphere during autocratic times in Tunisia took their toll on artistic freedoms as they anesthetized most of cultural life. The revolutionary movement however marked the beginning of the 21st century in a hopeful way. Five years later, the Nomadic Art Center, Moussem, invited five young Tunisian directors to show their work on the stages of BOZAR and the " Maison des Cultures " in Brussels. The festival explored how artists look back on this period and tackled the question how artists can contribute to the construction of a new social conscience on the ruins of an autocratic regime. " Moussem Cities @ Tunis " brought a fine selection of performances alternating revolutionary reflections and everyday disillusionment. Remarkably, many directors engaged with the revolutionary moment through canonical adaptations. This reflex surely is no exception

The main argument that will be brought up throughout this contribution is that a space of appearance is not something that happens spontaneously in a revolutionary context, when people gather through action and speech, but that it is something that can consciously be brought into being through performance. When looked at through the lens of performance studies, political events, such as revolutions, don't happen spontaneously. Politics are directed and performed. I will illustrate throughout this paper that, while a space of appearance can appear unscripted, they have a particular dramaturgy and draw their actions and discourses from a repertoire or contribute to a newly constructed repertoire, through a structured script, choreography and mise-en-scene.  The analysis on the intersection of performance studies and political philosophy allows us to grasp performative aspects central in the volatile dynamics of spaces of appearance. The findings elaborated in this article are mainly based on an intensive participatory observation during a Euro-Mediterranean artistic training late in  2014 in Tunis, organized by the Fai-Ar, the European Center for Artistic Training in Public Space and the L’Art Rue Association, initiator of the Dream City Biennial of Contemporary Art. I will gradually develop my argument relying on my lived, embodied and shared experience with other participants of three illustrative performances initiated during the artistic training. Looking at these three performances, I clarify in what follows not only the politics behind these artistic performances in the revolutionary Tunisian context, but also how spaces of appearances can be brought into being by performance.

After 23 years of rule in Tunisia, little attention was paid to the portrait of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. However, the portrait of the former president was an essential element in the autocratic and oppressive repertoire of the RCD (Rassemblement constitutionnel démocratique). The oppressive elements of the dictatorial repertoire were to a certain extent interiorised by the Tunisian people. Nevertheless cracks started to appear in the hegemony of the RCD, when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the winter of 2010. In its struggle for freedom and human dignity, the people reclaimed, appropriated and diversed the dictatorial repertoire. All state portraits of the president were (filmed) being torn, bent, trampled and burned. Creative embellishments to his image were shared on a huge scale through social media. The only portraits that the people carried with them were those of the martyrs of the uprising. The masses drew strength from the symbolic beheading of the dictator. It became a successful performative attack on the established order: the president fled to Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia, on 14 January 2011. The diversing of the autocratic repertoire by the people inspired various artists to create new works of art and emphasise in this way the premise that the people should take over the role of central political actor in any future political system in Tunisia.

FEU2FORÊT brings together a number of artists to re-imagine 30 years of revolt in Brussels through different burning aesthetics.

Artists: Maja-Ajmia Yde Zellama, Collectif Krasnyi, Fatima-Zohra Ait El Maâti, Nidhal Chamekh, Baobab van de Teranga and Code Rouge.

30 years ago today, Belgium cloaked itself in a “Black” Sunday. After youth set fire to several suburbs of the capital, a repressed racist discourse recaptured the country. The anger lingering at the root of these revolts has never really been answered. The questions raised then, are still red hot today. Together with various Brussels artists, the exhibition ‘FEU2FORÊT’ reimagines 30 years of revolt through various burning aesthetics. 1991 is a key year in the history of Brussels. The revolts of Forest are not only followed by “Black” Sunday. In the same year, the first recorded soul falls victim to police brutality (#JUSTICEPOURTOUS) and the sound of Brussels hip-hop breaks through to the general public, with the album Bruxelles Rap Convention. By working around the forgotten smoldering fire of 1991, we hope to strengthen the sparks that flew off various Brussels neighborhoods, to confront the challenges we apparently still face today.

An exhibition cooked with love in the Kitchen by Naima M. and Joachim Ben Yakoub, in collaboration with Code Rouge and Artistory. With the support of Sint Lucas Antwerp, Maxima, Zinnema and Pianofabriek Citylab. Graphic design by @Yema.Visuals. Photo from Code Rouge.

In Vistas of Modernity Vázquez presents to us a deep excavation of the double erasure and the variegated ways it produces the modern subject as consumer and spectator, as an always deviant copy of the Vitruvian man or Le Corbusier’s Modulor. Torn by the vortex of the colonial difference, this norma- tive man cannot but reproduce his inherited colonial wounds. In the light of the irreparability of what has been erased, eviscerated and dis-membered, in his spiral mode of writing Vázquez underlines the importance of precedence and provenance of re-membering and reparations, mourning and healing. As he emphasizes, decolonial thought is grounded in the inherited experience of mass enslavement, genocide, colonization, and more importantly in the guiding precedence of refusal, the lingering option of delinking that facilitates various ways to overcome and undo the logic of coloniality and in the end allows for new forms of re-existence beyond gender, beyond race and class. Hence the central ethical question of the book: how to undo the colonial difference, how to detach the enjoyment of the few, from the suffering of the many?