Once a place where sea, desert, and palm groves coexisted in rare harmony, Tunisia’s Gabès Oasis stands today as one of the world’s most fragile cultural-environmental sites. At its heart is artist Mohamed Amine Hamouda, whose ecological practice offers a form of resistance—one built on memory, materials, and a return to ancestral knowledge.
Hamouda grew up in Gabès and has witnessed, year after year, the slow erosion of a unique landscape. For decades, the region has suffered the consequences of a phosphate-processing chemical factory built in the 1970s. What was once the only maritime oasis on earth has become a place where high cancer rates, damaged soils, and declining fisheries reflect a larger social and cultural loss. Yet Hamouda sees not only destruction, but also a profound reservoir of wisdom.
His artistic journey began when he started revisiting childhood memories—particularly the old Souq El Henna, a market overflowing with spices, plants, and artisans whose knowledge has been passed down for generations. Listening to their stories and learning from their techniques, he began extracting pigments from local materials such as henna, pomegranate peel, and mulberry bark. In these experiments he found something more intimate than art: a reconnection with his origins.
Over time, Hamouda expanded this approach to include paper-making and weaving using natural fibres collected from oasis farms. Instead of discarding agricultural waste—palm fronds, dried stalks, or mulberry branches—he transforms it into sculptural works that honour a disappearing ecosystem. His installations, such as Fire & Heart of Palm, are built entirely from local materials and created with the support of farmers and craftspeople. Each piece becomes a record of what the oasis still offers, and a reminder of what is at risk of vanishing.
For Hamouda, the struggle is not only ecological; it is deeply historical. He describes the environmental crisis as a continuation of colonial decisions that ignored the delicate relationship between the people of Gabès and their land. By reclaiming traditional knowledge—silk-making from mulberry leaves, natural dye extraction, ancestral weaving patterns—he aims to re-write the narrative of the oasis from within.
His recent series, Oasis Maps, reflects this mission visually. Using handmade papers and natural dyes, he creates abstract aerial landscapes that reveal both the dryness and the hidden vitality of Gabès. Beneath the geometric lines are layers of cultural memory: the shade of palm trees, the colours of forgotten crafts, and the silence of a land struggling to breathe.
Through exhibitions, collaborations with artisans, and educational work with students, Hamouda hopes to inspire a new relationship between the local community and their environment. He believes that by understanding the richness of Gabès—its mountains, sea, and oasis—people may one day choose to stay, nurture, and rebuild it.
His art is not a lament for a lost paradise. It is an invitation to reclaim one.
