Ali Tnani: Unknown Program

“Unknown program” is Ali Tnani’s first solo exhibition in the UAE of his multimedia works, curated by Marie Cantos and Aziza Harmel. Through a multi-disciplinary practice that draws equally from installation as drawing, and photography, leading Tunisian conceptual artist Ali Tnani offers an examination of social issues in post-revolutionary Tunisia. Playing on notions of erasure in historical narrative, Tnani deploys the trace as a semiotic index, a sign for the remnant or memory left behind by the act of erasure. An extension of his notion of “counter-spaces” that are simultaneously plastic and political, the trace is understood as a phantom of history. History itself must be recognised as something that has been written, is being written, and will be rewritten again in the future. The trace therefore exposes the inherent contradictions in such narratives and opens a space for questioning the utopic vision of our hyper connected contemporary age.