B7L9: the contemporary art centre of Bhar Lazreg

You see it before you read it. A two-storey block covered in black and white stripes that refuse to line up: they run diagonally, break, start again the other way, swallow the windows and the garage shutter. In the middle, a white plate: B7L9. This is Tunisia's first non-profit contemporary art centre, it stands in Bhar Lazreg, La Marsa, and entry is free.

A name written in numbers

B7L9 reads like a text message. In arabizi, the Latin alphabet Tunisians use to write Arabic on a keyboard, 7 stands for ح and 9 for ق. B7 for Bhar, L9 for Lazreg: the name of the neighbourhood, written the way it is written in a phone. The Kamel Lazaar Foundation, which created the place, puts it in one line on its own site: the centre is named after the Arabic phonetic rendering of the neighbourhood, it is managed by locals and embedded in daily life.

The building changed its name along the way. At the opening the sign read Art Station, المحطة الفنية, and the press called it the foundation's art station. Today the same plate reads Art Centre, مركز الفنون. Between the two, seven years of programming.

The facade

The stripes are not a street artist's signature. They come from dazzle camouflage, the First World War paint scheme that, instead of hiding ships, covered them in geometric patterns to make their heading and speed impossible to judge. B7L9 does the exact opposite with it: the foundation explains that the facade, co-designed with residents, reinterprets those ships as a symbol of visibility and shared authorship. It was painted with the neighbours' help. In Bhar Lazreg, where almost nothing is signposted, it is the one thing you cannot miss.

March 2019: the opening

Kamel Lazaar, a Tunisian-Swiss investment banker, set up his foundation in 2005; in 2011 it launched Ibraaz, a reference platform on art from North Africa and the Middle East. B7L9 is its first permanent venue, inaugurated on Saturday 16 March 2019.

The inaugural exhibition was called Climbing Through the Tide. Turkish curator Basak Senova put it together in three months: fifty artists from twenty-one countries, works from the Lazaar family collection and new commissions, running until 9 June 2019, Monday to Friday from 11am to 7pm, free entry. It held Mirror, Mirror, an installation by South African artist Bronwyn Lace, extremophile plants put in the garden by Italian artist Egle Oddo, the abstract floor plans of houses receiving mourners by Tunisian artist Younes Ben Slimane, and a performance by Iranian artist Negar Tahsili, the centre's first artist in residence. Senova called the space a turning point for Tunis and for the regional art scene.

The choice of neighbourhood is the point. Bhar Lazreg is former farmland, wedged between La Marsa and Gammarth, which is to say minutes from the most expensive addresses on the Tunisian coast; after 2011, most of what was built there went up without a permit. Contemporary And adds another reason: the area is home to a large population of sub-Saharan African origin, and the centre states social cohesion and the shifting of the centre-periphery relationship as explicit aims. Kamel Lazaar sums up his own idea in a sentence: art should not be the pastime of the privileged alone.

What is inside the building

The foundation lists a 500 sqm exhibition hall, a screening room, a dance and music studio, flexible event spaces and a garden. Contemporary And describes a 600 sqm building that holds three to four major exhibitions a year, with a residency pavilion, studios, a library and a cafe on the terrace. Exhibitions are systematically paired with public talks, and arts education programmes run for the children of the neighbourhood.

The exhibitions

The programme alternates between established names and first times.

• Climbing Through the Tide, 16 March to 9 June 2019, curated by Basak Senova.
• Ici et Apres, 6 January to 13 February 2022, under the artistic direction of curator Karim Sultan.
• Tassili, the first solo show in Tunisia by Algerian artist Lydia Ourahmane, also curated by Karim Sultan, from 16 March to 20 May.
• Tente par d'autres soleils, the solo show by Bechir Boussandel, from 23 January to 30 March 2025, before travelling on to Tabari Artspace in Dubai.
• Fi Dar Khalti by Fredj Moussa, an immersive exhibition, from 21 November 2025 to 11 January 2026.
• I Hear the Old Sound of The World's Future by Mohamed-Ali Ltaief, a Tunisian artist based in Berlin: an exhibition and research project that reopens early twentieth-century North African sound archives to listen to what they hold. Opening on 24 April 2026. While it ran, B7L9 left Bhar Lazreg for a day of collective listening on a Sidi Bou Said rooftop, with Mogli, Orlok, Oldolioh and Tij Bnhsne on the decks.
• Where Memory Takes Place, 26 June to 12 July 2026: a group show of documentary photography brought together by Yemeni-Dutch photographer Thana Faroq, with Amal Moutaouakil (Morocco), Amera Elnaal (Libya), Lamees Koujan (Syria), Rola Khayyat (Lebanon) and Syrine Barouni (Tunisia), on memory, belonging, loss and women's relationships with the spaces they live in. It is part of Her Lens, a regional programme run by the Candid Foundation.

Delia Studio: music made on site

In October 2025, B7L9 opened the Delia Studio, a studio for young and early-career artists. The idea is not to host concerts but to carry the whole chain: research, rehearsal, recording, then the stage. Leper King, Illbucks and Habiiibiji developed projects there before presenting them to the public, and Habiiibiji walked out with an EP.

In summer the studio turns into the Delia Sessions, a cycle built on experimentation, improvisation and spontaneity, which the organisers describe as spaces of freedom with no set format or length. Aurora Music, the duo of Nessrine on vocals and Wael Jabeur on rhythmic composition, opened the season; singer AZA was a guest. Each session ends with an open concert in the hall, a few metres from the musicians.

The centre also runs its own open calls: Maa Elmoghreb, whose sixth edition is announced for December 2026, took musical project applications until 31 August 2026.

Bhar Lazreg Hood: the neighbourhood as a gallery

From 3 to 20 June 2026, B7L9 and Espace Farah turned the streets of the neighbourhood into an open-air gallery for the second edition of Bhar Lazreg Hood. Two weeks with no slack: volunteer workshops, a Kids Wall with Bulifa on 5 and 6 June, a rap workshop, sketching then painting sessions on a wall open to everyone, and, from 15 to 20 June, nineteen Tunisian and international artists painting large-scale facades across the area.

Between two walls, the programme opened the floor: "Street Art in the Arab World", "Make a Sound, Leave a Mark", then a panel on women in these disciplines, "On the walls, on stage, in the streets, she's here". A dance battle on 18 June, a closing showcase with Emp1re on the 20th.

The children of the neighbourhood

This is the least photographed and the most constant part of the work. B7L9 runs workshops all year for the children and teenagers of Bhar Lazreg: a stop-motion workshop led by Chaker Kalai, where participants built sets and characters before bringing their images to life, all of it gathered into a collective short film drawn from local myths and memories; a summer camp; and a Book Fair, two days of books sold at accessible prices, 10am to 4pm.

October 2026: Jaou, and Undertow

The eighth edition of Jaou Tunis, the Kamel Lazaar Foundation's contemporary art biennale, runs from 23 October to 22 November 2026 across the city, and B7L9 is one of its two lungs.

The centre hosts Undertow / Contre Courant, a group exhibition from 25 October to 31 December 2026, curated by Amanda Abi Khalil and Danielle Makhoul, brought to Tunis by the Art Explora Festival. The title names the current beneath the surface; the show is about hospitality and what plays out between the one who receives and the one who is received. Among the announced artists: Majd Abdel Hamid, Mounira Al Solh, Bouchra Khalili, Sara Kontar, Akram Zaatari, Younes Ben Slimane, and Jumana Manna's film Foragers.

Around the exhibition, the hall never empties:

• Glacier | Preset, an evolving performance by Enrico DauYang Wey, on 25 October at 3.30pm.
• Beiti Jerusalem by Samar Haddad King, with Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, on 28 October at 5.30pm.
• Julmud, Big Murk and Toumba, on 29 October at 7.30pm.
• Sacred Disorientation by Sara Dziri and I, The Hybrid and the Antidote by Liliane Chlela, on 30 October at 7.30pm.
• Nadah El Shazly, joined by 3Phaz, on 31 October at 7.30pm. One of the most distinctive voices in experimental music from the Arab world.
• Hyperculte, on 22 November at 6pm, closing the biennale.

Getting there

B7L9 is in Bhar Lazreg, La Marsa, north of Tunis; the exact pin is on Google Maps, and the venue page, with the dates ahead, is here: B7L9 Art Station. Posted hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 7pm. Exhibitions are free; concert tickets are sold online or on site during opening hours.

The programme is announced on Instagram and on the Kamel Lazaar Foundation site; the biennale's own is on jaou.tn.

Photos: facade, © Kamel Lazaar Foundation; exhibition views, concerts, workshops and Bhar Lazreg Hood, © B7L9 Art Centre.

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