From gestures born in everyday life to exhibitions shaped by sonic memory, Dream City returns with its most expansive edition yet.
Tarek Abou El Fetouh. Courtesy of L’Art Rue.
From October 3 to 19, 2025, the city of Tunis once again became a living stage for Dream City — the multidisciplinary arts festival produced by L’Art Rue. Marking its 10th edition, the festival invited audiences to walk the city’s streets, enter hidden courtyards, and engage with urgent artistic expressions from Tunisia, the SWANA region, Africa, and Europe. More than a celebration, Dream City 2025 affirmed art’s capacity to resist, to connect, and to reimagine.
Rooted in Place, Carried by Collaboration
At the core of this edition were the long-term Dream Creations and the Dream Exhibition — projects conceived and developed in Tunis over months and years. Dream Guests, Dream Concerts, Dream Videos & Films, Dream Talks & Ideas, and Kharbga City — a vibrant program for children and families — complemented these foundational works. The festival’s rhythm was punctuated by ShiftLeyli — a gathering of music and joy.
Longstanding partnerships anchored the program, including Dream Collaborations with TACIR, the Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF), and Bard College, reinforcing Dream City’s identity as both local and global, intimate and far-reaching.
Works Shaped in the Soil of Tunis
Two major creations developed through L’Art Rue’s residency program made their international debuts earlier in 2025 — Radouan Mriziga’s Magec / the Desert and Laaroussa Quartet by Selma and Sofiane Ouissi — before returning home for Dream City.
At Caserne El Attarine, Laaroussa Fragment became a living, participatory exhibition centred on the craft of the Sejnane potters. Women guided visitors through the slow, memory-filled process of shaping clay, their gestures forming a choreography of tradition and resilience. A boutique featuring works from 60 potters stood as a parallel act of visibility and celebration.
Mriziga’s Magec / the Desert offered a multisensory journey through desert ecologies, moving beyond representation into a realm of embodied experience — echoing with silence, time, and ancestral presence.
Two other long-term residencies deepened this sense of care and presence:
- In The Grounding Point, Sonia Kallel explored nomadic weaving and the geographies of exile with Mrazig women weavers from Douz. Each thread became a vessel for memory, breath, and survival.
- Éric Minh Cuong Castaing’s p/\rc__ unfolded as a tender dance of reciprocity between dancers and children with motor disabilities — a space where poetry emerged through mutual trust and embodied movement.
A New Vision for the Dream Exhibition
This edition marked the beginning of a significant new collaboration: curator Tarek Abou El Fetouh joined the artistic team to conceive the Dream Exhibition for both 2025 and 2027. His long-term project, Suni’a Bisihrika – Made with Your Magic, drew on the cultural and political resonances of Arab maqâms, unfolding across five chapters beginning in Tunis.
Featuring artists such as Walid Raad, Ayman Zedani, Iman Issa, Noor Abuarafeh, and Ala Younis, the exhibition opened space for reflection on sonic memory, exile, and collective identity. It amplified Dream City’s mission to create spaces of listening and resonance — where stories of the past engage with the urgencies of the now.
Learning to Dream: Art as Everyday Practice
Through its year-round Art & Education program, L’Art Rue nurtures a deep belief: art is a right, not a privilege. This belief came to life in workshops held across the Medina of Tunis, where children explored storytelling, dance, embroidery, cinema, and more.
During the summer, Dar Bach Hamba transformed into a laboratory of play, movement, and imagination. The Summer Camp invited children to create in visual arts, sound, cooking, and film — fostering a shared language of expression across generations.
This work culminated in Kharbga City at Dream City 2025, where younger generations took centre stage, offering fresh, unfiltered perspectives on the world.
For more information, please visit L’Art Rue.
