Identity, memory, emotion, the senses, and fleeting impressions all converged on the evening of August 8, 2025, as Karim Thlibi’s Imagine: Your Soul Listening transported the audience of the Carthage International Festival beyond the bounds of time, weaving together multiple contexts and stories.
Presented in its latest form as part of the festival’s 59th edition, the work was conducted by maestro Mohamed Bouslama with the Carthage Symphony Orchestra. Rooted in the tradition of psychodrama, it gathered a constellation of distinguished talents, including Palestinian singer Nay Barghouti, alongside Tunisian artists Najoua Omar, Mohamed Ali Chebil, Zied Zouari, Houssine Ben Miloud, Hedi Fahem, Saber Radouani, Nasreddine Chably, Hamdi Jammousi, Sirine Harabi, and Baha Eddine Ben Fadhel.
True to its name, the performance once again opened a portal to imagination, drawing from the legacy of reality and the realm of possibilities. With music of striking power and depth, the Roman amphitheater of Carthage became both a meeting ground for heritage and collective memory, and a space where diverse personal experiences could converge.
A defining feature of the production was its deliberate creation of a suspended space between the spoken and the unspoken, the tangible and the intangible—an artistic choice central to Thlibi’s vision. Words like “Imagine…”, “Do you remember…?”, “Smile…”, “Forgive…”, “Lift your head and look up!” marked the entrances of narrator Mohamed Mrad, whose resonant voice and commanding stage presence amplified the work’s emotional impact, enhanced further by the instrumental mastery and expressive performances on stage.
Tributes to Palestine and Gaza ran like a thread throughout the evening. Songs dedicated to those enduring famine in Gaza were accompanied by the Palestinian flag projected across the stage’s giant screen—symbolic gestures that reaffirmed the deep bonds of solidarity between Tunisia and Palestine.
TunisianMonitorOnline (Douha Saafi)
