Tunisia: Skander Khlif exposes the pain of exile and the anguish of returning through his photos
Audio 01:22
Snapshots by Tunisian photographer Skander Skhlif, during the opening of his exhibition in Tunis, February 23, 2023. © Hamza Bennour, via Archivart
Text by: Lilia Blaise Follow
2 mins
It's a boat trip that becomes a philosophical journey.
In the exhibition
The Return
to Tunis at the Archivart gallery, the Tunisian photographer Skander Khlif captures the pain of exile and the anguish of returning through shots taken during the boat crossing between Genoa and Tunis.
The exhibition also represents a moment of reflection, suspended in time.
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From our correspondent in Tunis,
"You see the islands, you see all that, already direct, you touch the sea." This discussion between photographer Skander Skhlif and one of the visitors to the exhibition
The Return
illustrates the emotion that affects a Tunisian from the diaspora when he looks at the pictures taken aboard the
Superba,
a ferry running between Genoa and Tunis… Skander Negra, 34, has an unforgettable memory of this crossing:
“
The little bar of the 1970s, let's say, is a bit Tunisian kitsch, it's a bit unique.
As soon as you get in the boat, you have the metal, the blue there badly painted.
It's not the finish, it's really the journey itself, you already feel back.
»
A moment that prompts reflection: "
A flight is an hour, but a 24-hour trip... there is not much to do, we think about what awaits us, what we have left behind.
We should do this kind of trip more often, to get back in place, let's say
.
»
Moments of life and emptiness reflecting absence and lack, as Wafa Gabsi, curator of the exhibition, explains: “There
are certain photos that bring enormous joy, despair, melancholy, loneliness.
I am there at several times, because I experienced it while being abroad.
»
"
A personal story
"
who “
tells our story
”
An engineer by training, Skander Khlif, a Tunisian living in Germany, converted during the Covid-19 pandemic to a professional photographer.
From the dives of young people on the beach of Carthage to the pensive gaze of a Japanese worker on a train passing by Mount Fuji, the photographer tries to capture furtive moments, emotions, with which everyone can identify.
It's a personal story and, at the same time, it tells our story: me, my wife and my son.
And at the same time that of thousands of others, it speaks of the diaspora in general, of the concept of Ghorba.
It means exile in its absolute and non-political sense, that is to say the heartbreak of being a little far from something.
So it's the story of a crossing, the one we did with my wife and my son this year, which I personally discovered, I'm doing this crossing by boat for the first time in my life, so I discover a setting, a journey out of time.
There is all this expectation, this joy of returning, but at the same time this nostalgia: we have a little fear of seeing people again whom we have perhaps not seen for two or three years, the parents who are perhaps - be old.
Since the wave of migrations is more and more intensive, it is that the general feeling of Ghorba is more and more intensive.
One is never abroad without any regrets.
Photographer Skander Khlif explains the feelings behind his exhibition on exile
Lilia Blaise
The exhibition ended on March 8, but it will then be posted on the gallery's website.
Tunisian photographer Skander Skhlif, at the opening of his exhibition in Tunis, February 23, 2023. © Hamza Bennour, via Archivart
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