Santarcangelo Festival — Artistic residency SAWT, Wissal Houbabi
From 1 to 14 June, L’Art Rue hosts Wissal Houbabi for the SAWT (Voice) creation residency, a project invited by the Santarcangelo Festival 2026. SAWT summons the voice as a site of oral memory, diaspora and contemporary practices of resistance.
This residency is part of a partnership with the Santarcangelo Festival (Italy), which will present the performance on 7 and 8 July 2026. The Tunisian residency feeds the project through field research and local encounters that directly inform its scenic and vocal composition. As part of the residency, a workshop will take place on 12 and 13 June, and an open studio / public presentation is scheduled for 13 June from 19:00 to 20:00.
The project — SAWT (Voice)
SAWT (“voice” in Arabic) is a research-creation project investigating oral memory, the Moroccan diaspora and feminine traditions of resistance through the legacy of Aïta. Drawing on a personal trajectory between Morocco and Italy, Wissal examines how voices migrate, transform and continue to carry stories of struggle, freedom and belonging.
The project looks to the chikhat — women poets and singers who have long borne collective memory — and seeks to stage a dialogue between ancestral songs and contemporary diasporic voices, aiming to produce new forms of oral poetry, transmission and performance.
The workshop — Imperceptible (co‑realised with Aymen Mejri)
Imperceptible is a two‑day workshop devised by Wissal Houbabi in co‑realisation with Tunisian artist Aymen Mejri, bringing together local artists to work with voice, memory and a collection of intimate stories.
Extending her participatory practice, Wissal chose not to stage a conventional residency finale but to build a shared space of collective exchange. Through listening, speaking, movement and joint experimentation, the workshop examines how a sound or a voice is remembered, why some memories persist, and how art can translate sensory memory into performative and relational forms.
Participants collaborate to surface a constellation of personal narratives, sensitive traces and sound memories, resulting in a collective work—an “orchestra” of stories that is at once imperceptible and tangible. The process culminated in a public Open Studio on Saturday, June 13, showcasing the outcomes of this participatory approach.
Wissal Houbabi’s artistic residency is a project by L’Art Rue in collaboration with the Santarcangelo Festival, supported by Creative Europe and made possible through the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
