We Are All Clouds – A Play-Based Artistic Residency in Tunis
12 February 2025

In early 2024, a unique collaboration took place in Menzah 1, Tunis—bringing together Tunisian and UK artists to explore play, creativity, and child-led learning in a vibrant neighbourhood setting. Led by artist and curator Najia Bagi, in partnership with Mouhit, The Mosaic Rooms, and supported by British Council Tunis, the residency centred around a joyful, open-ended workshop for local children and families.

Inspired by the softness of clouds—their shifting shapes, their lightness of being, their quiet power to drift and gather—we created a space for children to move, feel, and imagine freely. The Mouhit garden became a landscape of creative exploration, where children crawled through tunnels, drifted with fabric, tossed hibiscus-coloured balloons, and whispered stories under cotton-filled tents.

The workshop marked a meaningful step for Mouhit, welcoming children into the space for the first time and gently erasing the boundary between the neighbouring school and the art centre. It became a shared space of curiosity, trust, and transformation.
 

Artists Nia Fekri and Chahine Fellahi (Kimia Collective) travelled from the UK to take part, using the project as a live research site—contributing their energy and ideas to the evolving experience. Their collaboration with Tunisian artist Aziz Aissaoui brought different creative practices together in a space of care and experimentation.

As Aziz shared: “We didn’t just offer an experience; we became part of their stories—through play, through touch, through wonder.”

This residency offered a glimpse of what’s possible when art, community, and play converge across cultures. And it’s just the beginning.

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