Tunisian Collaborative Painting is an art form developed in Tunisia in the mid-1980s. It is unique in its method of allowing a group of artists to work simultaneously on a canvas without discussion or planning beforehand. The result is a painting created by a group of individuals that looks like the work of a single artist.
Tunisian artist Hechmi Ghachem created Tunisian Collaborative Painting in 1988 when Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali became president and dictator of Tunisia. “Freely expressing yourself in Ben Ali’s Tunisia was dangerous,” said Hechmi. He set out to reclaim freedom of expression for Tunisian artists. He formed groups called Brigades d'Intervention Plastique. “The brigades enabled artists to leave their professional loneliness and work in the same space, and on the same canvas” said Hechmi. “They created ties built on pleasure, excitement, struggle, jealousy, life, and love and death, as in every creative act. Together they produced paintings which mixed the best parts of themselves with the best parts of each of the other artists. One painting represented the individuality of all.”[1]
Hechmi Ghachem took his Brigades all over Tunisia. When a painting was finished it was given to the host who supplied the space where it was painted. Over a period of several years, hundreds of paintings were created. Many artists participated, some of them well-known and others who were new. The paintings they created together preserved the freedom of artists during the dictatorship of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.[1]