Title : Blurry Downtown

Form: Photography 

Medium: Photography 

Curated by: Simon Njami 

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The development of this work was carried out within the framework of the Jaou photography festival in Tunis. 

I continue to walk the city streets, I continue to breathe the same air, I continue to see the same streets, the same vendors, the same people. I keep seeing the same strangers, the same streets. I have been walking for a long time, since my childhood, since my adolescence... and I always feel like I am walking for the very first time. From Habib Bourguiba to the Medina, passing by the Place Barcelona... The crowded streets, full of faces, faces that I don't recognize, blurred faces.
It turns into a dream, in uncertainty about time, space, and buildings. In spite of this, I have the feeling that this is the most beautiful place in the world. I like its chaos. I keep walking... I never reach my destination because the city center is my real goal.
   
The day I took these images, the weather was capricious, cloudy, and rainy. The infrastructure of the city center is unfortunately not equipped to drain runoff water, so the streets and railroad tracks are often the scenes of repeated congestion: a chaotic blockage of traffic throughout the day. This freedom of movement, so dear to city dwellers, is thus undermined and transformed into an obstacle course. For this series of photos, the time of a car trip, I used my smartphone. The image thus became grainy and the aesthetic somewhat ghostly. But the camera was able to capture the passers-by in their erratic movements.
                   

 

                                                                                                                                     Zeineb Kaabi, Tunis August 2022