What have we learned from the Tassili?
A conversation with Michel Barbaza, Houari Bouchenak and Dalila Dalléas Bouzar
Unlike European Paleolithic cave art, realistic in its presentation but abstract in its essence, the rock art of the central Sahara is readily narrative and often integrates large compositions within which representations of the social group in action introduce a symbolic dimension. By situating them in the environmental and cultural contexts of Saharan prehistory, Michel Barbaza’s presentation will evoke these compositions which makes us wonder between an “art of war” and a “culture of peace”. After this presentation by archaeologist Michel Barbaza, the artist Houari Bouchenak questions the notion of landscape, space-times marked by memory, movement and traces, and hospitality, through the temporality of “Places of ‘writing’, as presented in the writings of the Algerian writer Mohammed Dib. Houari Bouchenak shares his research on the writer, whose poetry goes beyond words, exploring the intimacy of things and beings.
