My Cigarette Wife and Other Queer Tales of Kinship from Tunisia’s Contemporary Public Art Scene
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In: Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 54, No. 1, 02.2025, p. 30-59.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - My Cigarette Wife and Other Queer Tales of Kinship from Tunisia’s Contemporary Public Art Scene
AU - Malachowski, Justin
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2025/2
Y1 - 2025/2
N2 - This article explores the contradictions and political possibilities of creating a “safe space” using “family” as an organizational concept in a contemporary public art project in Tunisia. Amidst the backdrop of foreign development funding for the arts flowing into Tunisia and a global contemporary art scene where “patriarchal structures” are taken as antithetical to collaborative practices, family has been an intuitive and meaningful mode of organizing artistic projects in Tunisia, particularly as it relates to fostering safe spaces for queer youth. As opposed to “participation,” “commoning,” and other institutionally supported art concepts, family is not a concept widely exhibited. In relation to tendencies toward “sensible” approaches to the political efficacy of contemporary art, the artistic practice of making family points to a “nonsensible” politics of aesthetics, where the aesthetic is better understood not as the location of politics but as a quality of feeling that enables spaces of political possibility.
AB - This article explores the contradictions and political possibilities of creating a “safe space” using “family” as an organizational concept in a contemporary public art project in Tunisia. Amidst the backdrop of foreign development funding for the arts flowing into Tunisia and a global contemporary art scene where “patriarchal structures” are taken as antithetical to collaborative practices, family has been an intuitive and meaningful mode of organizing artistic projects in Tunisia, particularly as it relates to fostering safe spaces for queer youth. As opposed to “participation,” “commoning,” and other institutionally supported art concepts, family is not a concept widely exhibited. In relation to tendencies toward “sensible” approaches to the political efficacy of contemporary art, the artistic practice of making family points to a “nonsensible” politics of aesthetics, where the aesthetic is better understood not as the location of politics but as a quality of feeling that enables spaces of political possibility.
KW - art
KW - family
KW - politics of aesthetics
KW - queer
KW - Tunisia
KW - Sociology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85204094504&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/d5bb7c40-3889-31aa-9ddb-211073f1b48a/
U2 - 10.1177/08912416241278693
DO - 10.1177/08912416241278693
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85204094504
VL - 54
SP - 30
EP - 59
JO - Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
JF - Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
SN - 0891-2416
IS - 1
ER -