The family of the late Tunisian painter and sculptor al-Tayyib Belhaj Ahmed is seeking to place his home, known as Dar Amm al-Tayyib, on Sousse’s cultural and tourism map by completing the legal procedures needed to have it listed as national heritage, opening the way for its subsequent inclusion in the governorate’s tourist routes.
The house, which became a private museum in 2005, preserves a large part of the artist’s work, memory and experience dating back to the 1980s. It stands in a residential neighbourhood in Sousse, and its façade features details that differ from those of the surrounding houses.
Inside, sculptures, paintings and artworks made from copper, stone, marble, iron, rubber, wood, straw and ceramic are spread throughout the house, alongside materials and objects that had lost their original function before the artist reshaped them and gave them new uses and meanings.
Al-Tayyib’s home becomes an art museum
Al-Tayyib Belhaj Ahmed, born in 1949 and who died on 7 February 2022, did not begin building his home with a ready-made plan to create a museum in mind. The house was originally a place to live and work, then works and ideas began to accumulate in its rooms, while the artist added his personal touches to the walls and architectural details and helped build parts of it himself.
Over time, the house became an extension of his artistic experience, before he established his private museum there and wrote on its door in 2005: ‘Private Museum of Contemporary Art’. Belhaj Ahmed was a self-taught artist with no academic training, whose career combined oil painting, sculpture and engraving in stone, marble, wood and iron.
He also took part in group exhibitions and held solo exhibitions from the 1980s onwards. He earned the appreciation and respect of Sousse’s residents, who gave him the nickname ‘Uncle al-Tayyib’, which became the name of the museum established in his home. A central part of his practice was rooted in his passion for objects their owners had discarded.
His son Youssef describes this practice as ‘bringing objects back to life’. His father collected materials and tools that had reached the end of their practical use, then turned them into artworks unlike the purpose for which they were originally made. Rather than treating them as waste or worthless possessions, he looked for the new value and meaning that art could draw from them.
Youssef says that ‘every painting and every piece has a story’, pointing out that the works displayed in the house serve more than a decorative or exhibition function: each is connected to an idea or tale, and to the place from which its material came. The museum’s contents therefore carry traces of the objects’ previous lives, alongside the changes the artist made when he reassembled and reshaped them according to his own vision.
Among the pieces in the house are works in which Belhaj Ahmed used helmets belonging to soldiers killed on battlefields, removing them from their military context and putting them to artistic use. In another work, he used plastic to create a figurative form resembling a monster or crocodile, intended to point to pollution and the dangers it can pose to people and the environment.
These examples show how the artist connected discarded material with the message he wanted the work to convey. In its 2022 obituary, Tunisia’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs referred to his career as a self-taught artist who used different materials in his work and was able to adapt old objects and draw inspiration from them for artworks bearing his mark.
The house extends the artist’s experience and memory
That mark was not confined to the sculptures, paintings and engravings; it extended to the house itself, including its rooms, walls and sections that the artist helped build. For this reason, Dar Amm al-Tayyib does not appear to be a conventional gallery in which the pieces can be separated from their surroundings. The house is where the artist lived and worked and produced part of his oeuvre, while its design and details are also part of that experience.
Visitors find themselves in a space combining everyday life with artistic production, preserving traces of its owner in the building as well as in the works distributed throughout it. After Belhaj Ahmed’s death, his works remained in their places inside the house, while his family took responsibility for preserving it and introducing visitors to his work and career.
The house became a witness to the artist’s way of thinking and working, and to the stages through which he moved from collecting discarded materials to turning the entire place into a museum preserving a substantial part of his artistic experience. The house’s relationship with its surroundings was not fixed from the outset.
Sousse neighbours help sustain the experience
Some neighbours initially viewed what the artist was making with surprise, before their attitude gradually changed as they became familiar with the results he achieved using old objects. Once they realised that tools they considered beyond use could be transformed in his hands into different pieces, some residents began supplying him with objects and appliances they no longer needed.
At times, the family would hear the doorbell and find a refrigerator or television set left outside the house by a neighbour, in the hope that the artist would find another use for it. This practice made neighbourhood residents part of the house’s story, not only as neighbours observing its development but also by providing the materials that fed Belhaj Ahmed’s work and became new artistic elements inside the house.
The artist’s neighbour, Imad Ben Salem, recalls his relationship with him, saying that al-Tayyib Belhaj Ahmed was ‘an exceptional neighbour, both humanly and artistically’, and that every visit to his home revealed objects, ideas and works that had not been there on the previous visit.
Family seeks to include house in tourist routes
According to Ben Salem, the artist lived simply and devoted his life to the things he loved, spending what he had on what he believed in. The neighbour’s memory therefore remains tied to the house’s owner and to the place that sheltered his work. Belhaj Ahmed’s family is asking the state and the Ministry of Culture to include Dar Amm al-Tayyib in the tourist routes of Sousse governorate, hoping that official recognition of the site will help protect the artist’s legacy and bring it to a wider audience.
However, the recognition and official listing of heritage sites are subject to a legal process and specific procedures, including requirements related to the date on which the site was established. One such requirement is that more than three decades must have passed since its establishment before its inclusion as national heritage can be considered.
The family is working to fulfil the legal requirements and procedures needed for this listing, after which it would be possible to add the house to Sousse’s tourist routes and move it from the sphere of family memory within a private home into a cultural and artistic space with a wider public presence.
Today, the house preserves its owner’s philosophy of dealing with materials that have lost their practical value and transforming them into works carrying ideas and messages. It also preserves the process through which a home for living and working became a museum, without its creation having been planned from the outset. While Belhaj Ahmed gave discarded objects a different life, his family continues to work to protect the home that gathered those objects and ensure that it remains a witness to his experience after his death.
