The Artocracy project, featuring photos of ordinary Tunisians, has proven art can be just as provocative as politics.

Amplify’d from english.aljazeera.net

LE KRAM, TUNISIA — A crowd has gathered to ponder the black-and-white photographs which have been pasted across the face of building that was, until recent, the local offices of the former president's much-loathed party.

For the artists behind what is one of the most ambitious contemporary street art projects to vibrate the Arab world, the artwork is about replacing the once all-pervasive presidential photography with mosaics of ordinary, anonymous Tunisians who rose up against their government. The group are using street art to kick-start conversations and to challenge their compatriots to see the familiar in a new, post-revolutionary, light.

One of the artists, Wissal Darguiche, was questioned by some people about why they weren't using the photographs to commemorate those who died during the uprising. "I responded that my photography was about showing life and the future," she says, an argument many seemed to appreciate. She suggested to local people that they create their own art to remember the fallen, and some said they would continue the project after the artists left. Read more at english.aljazeera.net

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