Sandi

Your heritage isn't linear. You've once mentioned you're Tunisian, French, Italian, Swiss and so on. It’s not just one story, one clean narrative. And I think the way cultural heritage is approached today—especially from a Western perspective—is that the more linear and clean the story is, the more it’s deemed worth preserving. But when a story is messy, has strange or fragmented elements, it becomes… not necessarily unique, but harder to place. And yet, these messy stories—they’re the ones that might actually matter most. You know, for example, certain sites are chosen to represent World Heritage—what we consider "heritage." But heritage is also about building a single, dominant narrative for a nation, right? And I still believe—I see a lot of tension in your work, or perhaps resistance, toward this idea of a single way of narrating history, or heritage. You seem to take that narrative, and instead of accepting it, you fictionalize it. You place a person in the middle of it—someone lost in that singular way of telling the story of heritage. And then... you’re clearly troubled by it. It’s as though you’re saying: If heritage is meant to be linear, how do I make sense of it for myself? There’s a dissonance there. And what strikes me is that the person who most pointed you toward your Tunisian heritage... was your French grandmother. That already tells us there’s no such linearity in your story. So yes, I’d like you to expand on that—on this idea of the impossibility of a linear heritage. Also, I’ve noticed something: you speak often about your home—how crucial it’s been to you—but you’ve chosen to redefine it, to turn it into something else. A home without walls. And you *made* it that way. So I wonder—how do you connect the two? Is your childhood home part of your imaginary? Do you have pictures? Have you ever worked with that space—documented it or used it in your practice? Or is it more about intuition? Memory? Or something else entirely? I guess I’m trying to align your site of investigation with your personal trajectory.

Sandi

I had a grandmother who was deeply rooted in place. I always imagined her as the foundation of the tree I belong to—she grounded me in so many ways, across layers of belonging. Then, I encountered Europe later in life, when I was 18. By that time, I had already experienced colonialism through the Israeli military occupation. What was different, though, is that I didn’t experience colonialism through the people around me—my immediate family or community. Since we met, I’ve been reflecting a lot on what it actually means to have a French and Italian grandmother in Tunis. It’s such a particular condition. I’m not sure how to phrase it exactly, but even when we talk about grandparents, there’s a weight to that—there’s a presence. When I lived with Alessandro in Palestine for ten years, we constantly navigated and unlearned things. Colonialism was a daily conversation for us—how people viewed things, how daily life carried certain projections, like why there was no running water, for example. These frictions come from imagining a “modern” life that maybe the place never asked for in the first place. So, my question is: What does it mean to have your roots—especially through your grandmother—tangled in this strange space between the local and the colonial? For many of us, grandmothers are our roots. And I feel like this house means so much to you because it’s where those roots come together, even if uneasily. You are local—your life, your home, is there—and you embody that beautiful complexity.

Sandi

You’ve mentioned your multi-religious household—a Muslim father, a Christian grandmother. That really moves me. It reminds me of a world before colonialism, a world in the Arab region that embraced religious and cultural multiplicity. I come from Bethlehem, where living between Christians and Muslims was a real, lived experience. My grandmother used to talk about the three religions coexisting—not always perfectly, but together. I see that in your house. Sometimes, when I think of you, I’m kind of amazed. This house you grew up in—multi-religious, tied to colonial roots, layered with history and tension—there’s so much there to unpack. I imagine it hasn’t always been easy. There might be beauty, yes, but also the burden of unpacking it all.

Sandi

Colonialism has this subtle power—it’s harder to grasp. Maybe your grandmother didn’t express it overtly, but I imagine there was an undertone of cultural paternalism—that idea that caring for heritage was your responsibility, but through a French colonial lens. That’s heavy. You had to carry that, navigate your way through it. And when you say you were working on this for your master’s thesis, I don’t think it was just about academia. You were grappling with deeper questions: Who is local? Who belongs? Who’s the outsider? Sometimes the outsider isn’t just a tourist—it’s your own grandmother. She lived there, contributed something to that place, but still brought a different gaze. When I think of that house in Tunis, it feels like it holds something rare—something that belongs to the city, to its layered identity. Since meeting you, I keep thinking about what it means to have a French and Italian grandmother in Tunis—especially after living in Europe myself, where I encountered this soft, paternal colonial attitude in real time. It must not have been easy. Beautiful, yes, but definitely layered. That’s why I keep thinking about these two houses—the rooted one and the one holding this almost abandoned history. There’s so much there. So many layers to explore. So many things still waiting to be named.

Sandi

I totally understand what you're saying. But why not define where you're from, even if it’s complicated? In some ways, I think it’s already clear. The issue isn't that you don’t know—it's that the world expects you to fit into a single box: one nationality, one story. But for many of us, that’s not how it works. Maybe the confusion comes from trying to locate your identity in one place. But think of it like this: if you were a tree, what would your roots be? The roots are what allow the tree to grow, blossom, and bear fruit. So, it might not be about a singular identity—it’s about understanding your roots. Once you understand that, everything else can flourish.

Sandi

This is a major topic for us. What identity means, how it’s shaping them. It’s not abstract—it’s real. And maybe because my daughters are Palestinian, they’ve been forced to deal with identity from a very young age. It’s different for other kids. Sometimes someone will hear them say they’re Palestinian, and the response is almost like, “Wait, do Palestinians actually exist?” Like my daughter’s saying she’s Palestinian is some kind of myth. It’s dehumanizing to a point where if a normal teenage girl, just like them, says she’s Palestinian—it’s shocking. They don’t humanize Palestinians. They just want to make her a unique, exceptional story—"Sama, the exceptional one”—instead of understanding that she’s one of many. And then, they start seeing things—like how their cousins can’t come visit because they don’t have the right papers. They notice how other kids have grandparents visiting for birthdays, or go on holidays together. We talk about going on a family vacation, but then there’s the question of visas, border closures... So these political layers become part of their everyday life. My oldest daughter decided to study Arabic—she said she wants to use her first few years to connect to the Arab part of herself. And the younger one... she said something recently that really stayed with me. We were in Lisbon, talking to a friend about how she feels in different languages. She said, *“When I’m Palestinian, I feel shy.”* She said, “I’m a shy person when I’m Palestinian.” In Sweden, she’s outgoing. In English, she’s confident. In Italian, she’s playful. But as a Palestinian—she feels small, hesitant, like she’s not fully herself. She speaks Arabic. But even then, she doesn’t feel like she’s living her full potential *as* a Palestinian. She’s *super* Palestinian outside of Palestine. She’ll proudly say, “I’m Palestinian.” But in Palestine, she feels... shy.

Sandi

I think about my daughters. They’re half Palestinian, half Italian, and they’ve lived in Palestine, the U.S., Sweden, and now Italy. Their identities are layered and complex. But we often say that our house, our family—that’s their root. No matter where we are, we carry that sense of home with us. That’s why I keep encouraging you to reconnect with your own home—not out of nostalgia, but because it’s a unique kind of home. If more people embraced that idea of a layered, negotiated home—colonial, multi-religious, multilingual—the world would probably be better for it. It’s unfair to demand that someone fit into just one place when their roots are spread across many. What matters is respecting those roots and defining them for yourself. If your roots include a complicated relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, well, that’s a messy, complex root system—but it’s yours. You once told me your grandmother showed you archaeological places in Tunis—the abandoned histories, the neglected places. I think that’s a huge part of your story. That house, that heritage—it’s a significant part of you, not just physically but symbolically. Look at the baobab tree—how its roots grow down into the earth and up toward the sky. Maybe you’re like that tree—not one or the other, not upright or inverted—but something in between, rooted in many directions. If you see your starting point as this unique mix of people and places, it might give you the clarity you’re seeking—not in terms of definition, but in terms of understanding.

Sandi

Recently, I was having a conversation with Shaden about something that made me think. She talked about how her traditional dress gave her a sense of freedom. And it struck me—why didn’t I ever see that as a space of freedom? Why did I accept that certain narratives were imposed on me? Then, I had a conversation with Tala, and it took me even deeper. She’s been studying Arabic literature, Islam, Hadith, and Sharia law, and we often talk about it. She raised an interesting point: "Do you think she’d have the same freedom if she were in a French mall?" It was such an eye-opening question. We had been talking for half an hour, but it took her asking that question to make me realize something important.

Sandi

I want to ask you something else. Do you find it difficult to bring the personal into your work? Especially when it comes to education, or speaking about your practice? I ask because I’ve worked with Alessandro for a long time, and I still see him struggle with this. He’s trying to push against these deeply ingrained Western habits—this idea that knowledge has to be universal, detached. That “real” knowledge doesn’t use the *I*. That it comes from this high, bird’s-eye view. And of course, when you start from your roots—if you say “I”—then you’re no more universal than someone from Palestine, or China, or Tunisia. You’re particular. And Western knowledge, historically, has rejected that. They want knowledge that’s transportable, applicable anywhere. That’s what modernity was about. That’s what links it to the colonial. And you—you went to French school, right? I wonder if that makes it harder to speak from the “I”? Or maybe I’m wrong. Because when we talk about your family, you’re open. But when I asked you about the house, and the heritage—whether it’s your parents’ house or the other one—you quickly moved into the historical, colonial layers.

Sandi

It made me wonder if maybe you retreat into abstraction instead of grounding your knowledge in your own experience. I’m not saying that’s bad—I’m just wondering how you feel about that. Do you think your roots, where you live, your home—do you think they shape your choices in life and in your practice? And if so, how much?

Sandi

You know, I think this whole idea of "being from somewhere" as something abstract, it already feels confusing to you—and that’s totally valid. You’re not comfortable with that abstraction, and actually, we’re part of a generation that is constantly moving, living temporarily in different places, never really grounded in one fixed territory. It’s hard to feel like you belong only to one part of the world anymore. Of course, there are people who are born in a place, live there, die there—and for them, that deep, territorial attachment exists. But in your case, I feel like if you let go of the pressure to be *only* Tunisian, or to make Tunis this fixed identity that you must stay loyal to, it could open up a new kind of comfort. Because when we talk about “site”—the source of your knowledge, the place from where you think—I believe it's not one fixed location. It’s something more fluid, and I think you’ve been living that fluidity already. When you say you’re comfortable here or there, that’s not just about place—it’s about your ability to navigate between religions, between cultures, across colonial and non-colonial realities, between modernity and what came before. That adaptability—it’s something you’ve practiced in your own life. It’s already you. It’s not something you need to learn or acquire. It’s your lived knowledge.

Sandi

That’s why I think it would be really interesting to explore—together—whether those two houses, you spoke about – your family house and the house in Dougga, are still your sites for thinking. Could they become something more? Maybe it can also become a way for you to push yourself, especially now that you’re in this moment of transition in the year, to ask: *Do I want to do something with all this knowledge?* Not because the course requires it or anyone expects it—but because maybe the house, or what it symbolizes for you, can be a beginning. And even if it’s not the house—it might be something else. Either way, I’d love for us to talk more about what kind of practitioner you are. I realized we haven’t had a chance to dive into that. Maybe you could show me what you’ve done so far, or what you’ve been dreaming about doing. We can use our online meetings to push those ideas a bit further, to test directions—even if you end up going somewhere entirely unexpected. For me, when we talk about “site,” it’s already obvious: your site of knowledge is *that*. That house, that story, that experience. And maybe that’s where the confusion lies for you—because you keep returning to Tunis as a nation, as a territory, as something described in books. And maybe that makes you feel like you’re not allowed to long for something more intimate, more rooted. But when I hear you talk, when you speak from your experience, your knowledge comes out of you like fresh water. Effortlessly. Clearly. It’s yours. It *is* you. And that’s why, from my perspective, it’s really important not to abandon that—not now.

Sandi

Both of my daughters are *so* Palestinian—deeply, fully. And yet, they’re often shocked that even their own family doesn’t always see them that way. They say, “How is that possible? We’ve lived here, we belong here. We don’t feel different.” But still, there’s this subtle way in which they’re made to feel they’re not *fully* Palestinian. Not just by strangers, but by their own relatives. And that pain is real. It’s not only about how Palestinians or Arabs outside the family see them—it’s internal too. And it’s complicated, because my daughters have a very particular ground. When we talk about *site* or *ground*, I don't mean nationality. It’s not about a passport or a flag. It’s about: what is the ground where your roots have been growing, up until today? Where is the soil that has shaped how you see and feel the world? That’s the site. It’s the place from which you relate to everything around you. And I feel that the reason you feel so much comfort in *your* site is because it’s deeply rooted. It’s grown from a ground you know intimately. That’s why it draws you in. It reflects you—it mirrors what you recognize, even if it's not easy to explain to others.

Sandi

And if you take time to really explore both—your life experience, your inherited knowledge—you’ll start to understand more clearly: *who you are*, what kind of knowledge you carry, and how that knowledge wants to live in the world. The more you dive into that, the more your practice will reflect it. And slowly, the discomfort will ease, because your work will start speaking for itself. You won't have to explain anymore that “this work is Tunisian” or “this work is not Tunisian.” You’ll be able to say, “This work comes from *this* specific ground. Yes, it happens to be in Tunis. But it’s not *just* Tunis—it’s many things, layered, plural.” And that’s where you begin to claim space. You create your own ground. You become the host. You invite others in—not the other way around. You’re no longer a guest trying to explain yourself, trying to justify why you belong. Instead, you say, “This is my ground. This is where I speak from.” And you offer that ground to both Tunisians and non-Tunisians alike. And yes, it’s true—sometimes the most painful experiences come from those we consider our own. It stings more when a fellow Tunisian says, “You’re not really Tunisian.” But that’s precisely why *you* bringing them into *your* ground can be so transformative. You might show them a Tunis they’ve never known. And that—*that*—is a shift. A powerful one. Because in doing that, you're no longer operating within the boundaries set by states, nations, or institutions. You’re not living within their definitions. You’re creating your own. And unless you claim that space—unless you host others in your own ground—you’ll always be made to feel like a guest. And that discomfort will linger.

Sandi

It feels like what you are describing is not only a personal story, but also a condition—one that is at once intimate and historical. You carry inside you these different inheritances, but instead of feeling grounded by them, you feel unsettled, even disoriented. And that disorientation is not just yours, it’s also the trace of colonial histories, of displacement, of silences. When you speak about your grandmother, it becomes clear that what you inherit is not only culture but also confusion. And I think this is where the real question lies: how do you make that confusion into a space of practice? How can the fragments, instead of being sources of weakness, become sites where you act, where you create, where you belong differently?

Sandi

What strikes me is that both positions—your French grandmother’s insistence and your Italian grandmother’s silence—are ways of surviving. For one, survival meant affirming Frenchness, holding on to it as something that cannot be taken away. For the other, survival meant erasing Italianness, hiding it, making it invisible. And now, you inherit not only their lives but also their strategies of survival. That is why your confusion feels so deep—it’s not only personal, it’s historical. And this is what makes it fragile: belonging is never stable, it’s always shifting, shaped by what is remembered and what is erased. Silence can be as powerful as speech. What your Italian grandmother did not say became part of your inheritance. And silence is not emptiness—it carries weight, it shapes how the next generation understands itself. The unsaid often determines more than the said. This is why it’s important not to see her silence only as absence, but also as a presence, a decision, a practice of survival. And that silence has now become part of your identity, part of your confusion.

Sandi

Maybe the confusion is not something to be solved, but something to be inhabited. What if confusion is your first homeland? Instead of thinking of it as a weakness, maybe it’s the ground from which you create. Because confusion resists the demand for clarity, for fixed identity. It keeps things open, unsettled. And that openness can be a form of resistance, a way of decolonizing. You don’t have to choose between Frenchness, Italianness, or Tunisianess—you can live in the confusion and let it guide your practice.

Sandi

The question then becomes: how do you use your own confusion as a site? The site is not only Tunis, the site is also your confusion. That’s where you practice. We always think of the site as external, like a physical place or a digital platform. But the site can also be internal—your questions, your confusion, your identity. And then you connect these different sites. This is why I say decolonization is not only about identity, but also about practice. It’s not only about who you are, but also about what you do, how you design, how you engage with the world. Decolonization is a lifelong process—learning, unlearning, refusing ready-made answers, creating your own space. And sometimes this doesn’t happen through your grandmother, because she doesn’t understand the question—it’s not her struggle. The confusion is yours, and you have to make it into a site of practice.

Sandi

Your grandmother’s refusal to understand your confusion is also generational. For her, identity was fixed, unquestioned. Being French gave her stability and recognition. Questioning it would destabilize her whole life story, so she prefers to dismiss your confusion. But for you, it’s different. You don’t have that shield. The world you inhabit demands that you question and situate yourself differently. That is why your confusion is a site, while for her, it is unnecessary, even incomprehensible.

Sandi

This is where decolonization comes in. Heritage is usually understood as frozen—tied to nationality, ethnicity, monuments. But when you shift it into practice, into something alive, you are already decolonizing. You are refusing rigid frames, choosing instead what is dynamic, what continues through action. It’s not about reproducing an imposed identity, but about making your own space. Belonging doesn’t have to be tied to fixed identities. It can be about belonging to a practice, to a dialogue, to the act of creating together. This is collective belonging, not individualistic. By refusing to resolve confusion, you also refuse the demand for a fixed identity. Instead, you say: I belong through practice, creativity, dialogue.

Sandi

Living between worlds and using it as a resource is the real shift. Confusion is not weakness but possibility. Colonial structures push us to resolve, to fit. But when you say: I will not resolve, I will practice from ambiguity, you are resisting. Confusion becomes as real a site as Tunis or the website, because it grounds your practice.

Sandi

Practice is a form of dialogue—not only with others now, but also with those who came before. When you inherit creativity, you are continuing a conversation across generations. Heritage is not frozen; it is a practice that moves, that grows, that connects. And your project is part of imagining a future where belonging is not identity but shared practice. What you are describing is already a refusal of fixity. You are shifting the ground from labels to practice, from frozen heritage to living heritage. That is decolonization. Confusion is not a problem but a gift—the site where you can create something that doesn’t exist yet. That is where the future lies.