In January 2025, I was invited by the Italian Cultural Institute of Tunis and curator Filippo Maggia to work on a project exploring the historical connection between Italy and Tunisia through portraiture.

After a period of reading and research, I chose, more than I had ever done before, to rely entirely on photography: on its flexibility and its ability to reveal the unexpected.

During my journey through the north and south of Tunisia, visiting different realities, plantations, factories, small businesses, that link the two countries, it became essential to listen to the stories of the people I met, to let me be guided by the places themselves, or by individual details that quietly emerged. These elements became part of scenes where, through light, possible narratives revealed themselves, narratives that, in those moments, in my lived experience, I perceived as capable of moving through time and connecting with the subjects portrayed. The human figures in these photographs are actors of the present who, in their workplaces, mark a point in the long story that led them to this encounter, thus assuming a role that reflects the very meaning of the project. I believe it is through this moment of contact between people, within the space that photography defines, that reality shifts slightly, opening itself up to unexpected interpretations.

The project, along with those of the other participating artists, Claudio Gobbi, Giovanna Silva, and Souad Mani, was presented at the Bardo Museum in Tunis between April and July 2025, as part of the exhibition “Daccourdou. La présence culturelle italienne en Tunisie. Un récit photographique".

- Tommaso Fiscaletti