The sleepy footling hamlet of Erriadh on the isle of Djerba—once known equally the “island of dreams”— is non business office of Tunisia’s tourist circuit. It’s primarily a pilgrimage site , beingness abode to the largest together with oldest synagogue inwards North Africa —El Ghriba— which is inwards continuous piece of job for over 2 ,000 years. Other than a few G pilgrims , the hamlet sees really footling foreigners. There are no large businesses or hotels inwards Erriadh; exclusively modest houses amongst traditional Berber architecture featuring opened upwardly courtyards together with domes. But over the final few years , this has been changing. Erriadh’s original attraction today is street art.
It began inwards 2014 , when Mehdi Ben Cheikh , a Parisian fine art gallery possessor together with a Tunisian yesteryear nativity , invited over i hundred artists from xxx countries to brand his ambitious projection , Djerbahood , come to life. Mr. Ben Cheikh has been mobilizing the street fine art movement for to a greater extent than than a decade. In 2013 , he invited over i hundred creative mortal to pigment a derelict 10-story storey edifice that was laid upwardly to travel demolished. It turned out to travel i of the biggest collective street fine art exhibition inwards Europe. Djerbahood , he claimed , was to travel the world’s commencement permanent street fine art projection of its scale.
Ben Cheikh commencement obtained permission from the Tunisian Ministry of Tourism together with the mayor of Djerba , also equally the private homeowners. This turned out to travel non equally slow because many Tunisians consider graffiti to travel vandalism.
“At commencement , the locals didn’t actually sympathise what I was trying to produce ,” Mr. Ben Cheikh said. “But this projection isn’t almost vandalism. It’s a existent exhibition amongst a existent scenography.”
Once consent was obtained , roughly homeowners began to gave opinions on how they wanted the artwork to hold off , whilst others gave the artists gratis reign to pigment equally they wished. Over the adjacent several months , the artists made to a greater extent than than 3 hundred industrial plant on the walls of the hamlet , transforming the hamlet together with the surrounding expanse into a large open-air fine art museum.
“I’d dear to come across the whole isle of Djerba serve equally a sheet for street fine art ,” Mr. Ben Cheikh said. “I promise that the locals volition snuff it along the projection travel yesteryear contributing to it later on nosotros leave.”
