Westbeth welcomes photographer Faten Gaddes
via NYC Safe Haven Residency Program

Photo: @Augustin Le Gall

Westbeth welcomes Faten Gaddes, a Tunisian photographer who arrived here via the New York City Artist Safe Haven Residency Program.

This initiative is led by a coalition of organizations working to safeguard free expression, and includes Artistic Freedom Initiative. Residency Unlimited, Westbeth and others.

Westbeth provides artists of all disciplines affordable live and work space.
Matthew Rutenberg of the Westbeth Board of Directors spearheaded Westbeth’s involvement in the coalition.
Learn about Westbeth here.

The Artist Safe Haven Residency Program provides a temporary residency at Westbeth and is designed to house and nurture international artists who have experienced persecution, censorship, or some other restriction on their free expression.

Faten’s interactive installation, Punching-Ball, which symbolized the violence experienced by women across different religions was attacked and burned by extremists in Tunis.

Faten Gaddes French/ Tunisian photographer was Born in Tunisia in 1974. She graduated in Interior Design while indulging in her passion for photography and sharpening her skills through training classes. She is a member of the Visual Art Association (VA).

She has exhibited her work since 1998, and is represented in Tunisia by Ammar Farhat gallery in Sidi Bou Said,

Working in an artistic and political vein, with an emphasis on the duty to memory, Faten Gaddes has repeatedly shown her work all over the world.

Venues include, in Paris at A.Farhat Gallery, the ICI Institute of Islamic Culture, at the Quai Branly Museum Photoquai Biennel and at the Sisley Foundation; in Bamako at the the IMA-Arab World Institute and at Photographic Bamako Encounters; in Lisbon at the Gulbenkian Foundation; in Algiers at the modern art museum MAMA; in Rome, at the villa Borghese; in Berlin at the IFA gallery; in New York at the United Nations headquarters, at Pratt Institute, and at the Africa Center with Moleskin Foundation; in Marseille at the « MUCEM « the Museum of Modern Art; in Venice at the Tunisien Pavillon – Venice Biennial; in Washington at the Katzen Arts Center American University; and in Marrakech at 6.4 gallery.

Faten Gaddes is the winner of the first prize of the smartphone short film festival in USA / August 2019.

More info at: Faten Gaddes website

Michele Wamble, S Dakota 2018. photo F Gaddes

Estefanoo, Brooklyn 2017. photo F Gaddes

Seneca Sioux Tribe, S Dakota 2018. photo F Gaddes

The coalition behind the New York City Safe Haven Residency Program includes ArtistSafety.net, Artistic Freedom Initiative, Residency Unlimited, PEN America with Artists at Risk Connection, and Fordham University, in addition to Westbeth. These organizations aim to create a safe haven for artists at risk, providing housing, legal services, and artistic development opportunities in the form of residencies. The coalition model was developed with the understanding that no single organization can adequately serve the needs of threatened artists. Each member institution plays a unique role in supporting resident artists. As part of the program, Westbeth provides several safe haven residency apartments and welcomes these artists into the Westbeth community of creators.