Houda Ghorbel
“A kind of hell on earth pierces the crust and becomes embedded in the landscape of the gallery. Eleven smashed heads float in the air, each supported by a maze of black pipes. As a whole they comprise a contemporary allergy.
Each head proclaims pain that is silent, yet obvious due to the disheveled and bruised features and holes in place of eyes, mouth, nose or ears, which results in holes in their souls. They exude a sense of intrigue and desolation. An appalling facet of our society that the artist wanted to express with her work, through her gaze.
With a system that tends towards excessive consumption and political context favoring modern economic cannibalism, individuals are reduced to puppets. Oppressed on one hand by the media and on the other by traditions, in spite of themselves they see their thoughts are channeled in only one direction. The education system that should to play a role in awakening and be an effective tool for analysis and development towards critical thinking and intellectual independence is reduced to entirely voluntary brainwashing.
Manipulatable citizens, whose spirits feed daily on debris and dirt, enough to capsize the hearts of greed of the most rotten decision-makers. They distribute their pretty words to all, like thrown flowers that fade before reaching the ground.
Individuals often suffer, despite their differences, at the hands of the same evils. Their woes are contagious and their frustrations expand with contradictions and ignorance. Some explode and take with them a piece of misery and death; others implode and try to tame the images that their mirrors return.”
Text written by Neila Mhiri and translated by Anne Marie Butler
