Afef Omri and Mehdi Guermazi - A Sonic Map of Nomadic Tunisia

Afef Omri and Mehdi Guermazi are the co-creators of Audioclopedia, a platform that invites users to listen and share the sounds from their homeland as a means to preserve the memory of a place and to collectively build a sensitive cartography of the sonic world.Afef, an architect by training, approaches sound as another way of understanding space. Mehdi is a producer, DJ and founder of a record label reimagining traditional North African music. Together they explore what it means to archive a nomadic culture that has never been static and leverage sound to preserve what history often overlooks.The project was born from artistic and ethnographic research on the popular songs of southern Tunisia which carry a spatial and communal memory. Their exploration of the Chott Ejrid region (between Kebili, Tozeur, and Gafsa) led to the idea of a living digital tool capable of linking sounds to their spaces of origin, preserving fragile voices and showcasing the diversity of each territory.Their work weaves together field recordings, chants, rituals, environmental sound and architecture to create a living archive of a nomadic culture whose history has been carried through voice, memory and movement rather than written records.During our conversation we explore resistance, identity, feminism, migration, oral tradition, and the responsibility of preserving cultural memory without freezing it in time. As Afef says, "My existence is found in resistance. I can't live in another way than this."Audioclopedia is a living archive and anyone can be a part of it. If you have recordings, chants, memories or sounds from your land you can contribute to the project and help preserve a shared cultural history.Website:https://www.audioclopedia.orgInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/uareanotherme/https://www.instagram.com/_afefomri/https://www.instagram.com/realhenibal/Soundcloud:https://soundcloud.com/inlakeshrecords