• Portrait of an artisan, a research on exhibitions and the construction of the artisan identity in Tunisia, in the first half of the 20th century.

    Portrait of an artisan, a research on exhibitions and the construction of the artisan identity in Tunisia, in the first half of the 20th century. Berlin, Germany, 2021. Photo Judith Hunziker.

  • Portrait of an artisan, a research on exhibitions and the construction of the artisan identity in Tunisia, in the first half of the 20th century - 02

    Portrait of an artisan, a research on exhibitions and the construction of the artisan identity in Tunisia, in the first half of the 20th century. Berlin, Germany, 2021. Photo Judith Hunziker.

  • Installation view of This Bridge Can Get Us There exhibition, Archive Sites Berlin, Germany, 2021.

    nstallation view of This Bridge Can Get Us There exhibition, Archive Sites Berlin, Germany, 2021. Archival display by Intilak (Touda Bouanani, Lea Morin, Maya Oubadi) around writings of women filmmakers, theorists and critics of the cinematic avant-gardes in North Africa. Photo Denis Laner.

  • Installation view of This Bridge Can Get Us There exhibition, Archive Sites Berlin, Germany, 2021. Photo Denis Laner

    Installation view of This Bridge Can Get Us There exhibition, Archive Sites Berlin, Germany, 2021. Photo Denis Laner

  • Installation view of This Bridge Can Get Us There exhibition, Archive Sites Berlin, Germany, 2021

    Installation view of This Bridge Can Get Us There exhibition, Archive Sites Berlin, Germany, 2021. Photographic installation by Louiza Ammi around women-led protests in Algeria in the 1990s. Photo Denis Laner.

Beya Othmani (Tunisia) is an independent curator and researcher. Her work focuses on exhibition histories, the construction of racial identities in the arts, and state-led exhibition-making practices in colonial and post-colonial Africa. She is a member of Archive Sites, a platform for publishing and cultural research, where she co-curates the program Publishing Practices, an on-going inquiry around the production and dissemination of printed matters and a learning site for radical publishing.

During her residency at Delfina Foundation, Beya Othmani will be pursuing her research on the Tunisian participation in international art exhibitions that took place between the 1950s and 70s. Taking Tunisia as a case study, she hopes to examine how revolutionary African states approached and appropriated exhibition-making practices during the period following their independence.

Beya co-curated the exhibition and residency program This Bridge Can Get Us There at Archive Sites Berlin in 2021, which considered the potential of publishing as a subversive and emancipatory practice through the prism of transnational feminist methodologies and anticolonial thought. In 2021, she curated Alger Insolite, an online programme as part of a research project on African photography initiated by Untitled Duo and the Rencontres Photographiques d’Arles. Alger Insolite was thought of as an open conversation around the politics of space and their entanglement with image taking the neighborhood of Algiers-center as an entry point. She co-curated the Sonsbeek Council #1 in Tunis in March 2020 on labour and its sonic ecologies. She was previously a member of the Berlin-based art space SAVVY Contemporary, where she co-produced the event series Listening Session: Untraining the Ear, and the Untraining the Ear festival. She was part of the curatorial team of various exhibitions, among them The Dog Gone Death at Dak’Art 13 Biennale (2018), and Shadow Circus for the Forum Expanded of the Berlinale (2019). She is currently a recipient of the CAORC/Andrew Mellon Art History fellowship.

Beya was born and is currently based in Tunisia.

WITH SUPPORT FROM

Delfina Foundation’s Network of Middle East, North Africa and South Asia Patrons

RESIDENCY SEASON

Winter 2023

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Please note all residents biographies are accurate at the time of their residency. For up-to-date bios please visit their website.