Et si Carthage... — Nidhal Chamekh

نضال شامخ | Nidhal Chamekh

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Travaux/Works

Et si Carthage #1. 2024
Ink, graphite and transfer on paper, scaffolding
200h x 250w cm

Et si Carthage #1. 2024
Detail.

Et si Carthage #2. 2024
Ink, graphite and transfer on paper, scaffolding
200h x 250w cm

Et si Carthage #2. 2024
Detail.

Et si Carthage #3. 2024
Ink, graphite and transfer on paper, scaffolding
200h x 250w cm

Et si Carthage #3. 2024
Detail.

Et si Carthage #4. 2024
Ink, graphite and transfer on paper, scaffolding
200h x 250w cm

Et si Carthage #5. 2024
Ink, graphite and transfer on paper, scaffolding
200h x 250w cm

Et si Carthage #5. 2024
Detail.

Et si Carthage #6. 2024
Ink, graphite and transfer on paper, scaffolding
200h x 250w cm

Et si Carthage #6. 2024
Detail.

The drawing series Et si Carthage? makes visible the ancient influences of North Africa on Roman antiquity. Figures such as the horned deity Ammon bring together Berber, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Roman gods. Although Carthage was crushed by Rome, the province of Africa Romana subsequently became highly significant in Roman trade, culture, and politics, notably through the African Emperor Septimius Severus and his dynasty. Roman rule sought to integrate the best of what was found in the provinces; this series emphasizes how Carthage itself continues to resonate in Rome and beyond through a plethora of cultural and iconographic influences.

The resilience of the Punic metropolis is also reflected in the eyes of the vanquished and exiled. Today, it can be seen in the determination of those who, crossing the Mediterranean, resist the structural mechanisms of the globalized economy—mechanisms developed over long periods of imperial domination and colonial extraction, concentrating wealth in the hands of the northern few.