Soukra: An E-Commerce Platform Showcases Tunisian Artists and Artisans Post-Arab Spring

Portrait of Pauline Eveillard, San Francisco, October 2018, by Emily Dulla

In the wake of the Arab Spring, a wave of creative capital formerly locked away in Tunisia’s villages and towns splashed into international markets. Craftspeople and artisans, the bulk of them women, had spent centuries selling their wares exclusively to local buyers, but with the social upheaval of 2011 and the subsequent ebb of local capital flows, many of those makers began to seek customers abroad. A freeze in new construction forced many architects and engineers to reinvent themselves, often as object designers, a profession that required less capital and proved more conducive to trade across borders, and the promise of a new era’s dawn drew many Tunisians who’d been living abroad to return to their country and try their hands at launching start-ups themselves.

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