THE CHURCH OF EL AOUINA
Jaou Tunis’s “water” pavilion is housed inside a former French colonialist church, the backstory of which epitomises the changing fortunes in Tunis – as well as the festival’s determination to activate symbolic sites in the city. The small church, in the north-east of the city, was built by the French in 1932, in what was then fields. After the French left, it was taken over by Ben Ali’s nephew as his office, and it was abandoned after the revolution. A few years ago, however, it became the makeshift training ground for boxers in the National Guard, which wedged a bright green boxing ring into the building and hung punching bags in the apse. The Ministry of Interior, which oversees the National Guard, now helps train young kids from the neighbourhood in the sport.
Lina Lazaar, founder of Jaou Tunis, had long wanted to use the site for an exhibition, but the Ministry of Interior kept refusing. “But then I saw women coming and going from the church and I asked what was going on,” Lazaar tells me. “They said, ‘Women are boxing. They’re fighting and they’re louder than the boys!’ But they didn’t have showers or anywhere for them to get changed.”
“I said I’d make them a deal. You allow us to exhibit here and to open the space to the public, and you allow people to understand how alternative the space is, and we’ll supply the water for the women’s showers.” The Kamel Lazaar Foundation, which runs Jaou Tunis, gave the former church a small grant. “That’s how it became the pavilion of water,” she says.