Diquadilà

La Boîte in Tunis presents "Diquadilà", a group exhibition by Ahmed Ben Nessib, Omar Cheikh and Stefano Ricci, curated by Salma Kossemtini, from 7 September to 15 December 2026. The show gathers drawings on wood made in Modena, clay glove puppets shaped during a residency in Tunisia, a performance and a documentary film by Achref Bettaieb. In the installation, round panels drawn in black and white hang on cords from the ceiling.

The title translates roughly as "on this side, on that side". It names the back and forth between two shores, and the position of whoever is speaking. The three artists started talking in 2022 about where each of them stands. One is an immigrant, one used to be, and the third was born in exile; none of them lives in his birthplace. A first version took place in Modena in 2023 at the Periferico festival, curated by Collettivo Amigdala, with a performance, drawings, sound and a meal with the audience. Tunis, the point of departure, hosts the second act.

In Tunis the project became a residency. The artists spent several days with Habiba Saidani, a master craftswoman from Sejnane, learning to shape and fire clay by a method handed down from mother to daughter. The puppets came out of those sessions. Their characters are drawn from accounts by people who moved from Tunisia to Italy between the 1970s and today, across generations and circumstances. Each stands for a position: someone leaving, someone staying, someone waiting, someone who has not been heard from since. The artists chose the glove puppet, a figure of street theatre meant to reach as many people as possible.

Kossemtini's text sets the project against the memorandum of understanding signed by the European Union and Tunisia on 16 July 2023. Part of its funding was earmarked for policing the coast and preventing departures. She writes that the exhibition holds the subject at the scale of a single voice, hand or face, rather than numbers. Ahmed Ben Nessib, a Tunisian draughtsman and maker of animated films born in 1992, lives in Modena. Omar Cheikh works with sound and drawing and belongs to the independent space Titivil in Bologna. Stefano Ricci is an illustrator who teaches at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna.