Younès Ben Slimane. We Knew How Beautiful They Were, These Islands
A lone figure digs a grave in the dead of night. With no dialogue – and no sound other than the wind, the crackling of a fire and the scrape of a shovel against dry earth – we are confronted with a dark and mysterious, possibly cursed, universe where every object seems haunted by a meaning we barely sense, but which seem to confirm our anxieties.
A lone figure digs a grave in the dead of night. With no dialogue – and no sound other than the wind, the crackling of a fire and the scrape of a shovel against dry earth – we are confronted with a dark and mysterious, possibly cursed, universe where every object seems haunted by a meaning we barely sense, but which seem to confirm our anxieties. The head of an old doll, a comb, a lipstick. Relics whose silent language speaks of the end of their former owners.
Younès Ben Slimane is a Tunisian artist and filmmaker. His practice lies at the intersection of cinema, architecture, and visual arts.
Through moving image, he redraws the contours of a sensory cartography of places, where memory and materiality are intertwined. His work is rooted in a search for trace, gesture, and atmospheres.
His work has been showcased at the Zaha Hadid Foundation in London, the Documenta fifteen Mobile Lab in Kassel, the Mucem in Marseille, the Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain in Dakar, the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio, among others.
He was artist-in-residence at Villa Medici in Rome, Fondation Thalie in Brussels, and the Al Ula Arts Residency in Al-’Ula.
His works are part of art collections including the MACBA in Barcelona and the KADIST Foundation (Paris – San Francisco).
Movie Younès Ben Slimane - 21 min - 2022 (France)
Production: Le Fresnoy-National Studio of Contemporary Arts (FR) and Inside Productions (TN)
Younès Ben Slimane, We knew how beautiful they were, these islands Courtesy de l’artiste et du Fresnoy-Studio National Des Arts Contemporains © YOUNES BEN SLIMANE - ADAGP- 2025 tous droits réservés