Irena Eden and Stijn Lernout travel through Tunisia in search of the Écrivains Publics. Also known as lawyers for the poor, the Écrivains Publics write letters of complaint, petitions, applications and everyday correspondence for city dwellers. They are masters of writing, but also social and life counselors who deal with people far more intensively than one might expect. Irena Eden and Stijn Lernout ask the Écrivains Publics, whom they visit in their offices, to write their own text that tells something about life in their city. Photographs of city scenes are juxtaposed with the resulting texts, which convey the hopes of Tunisians after the Arab Spring as well as their self-confidence and concern for the common good.
Irena Eden, born 1974 in Hamburg, and Stijn Lernout, born 1972 in Antwerp, have been working together since 2004 on the realization of artistic projects and works. From 2000 to 2004, they studied sculpture and project art at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts, Kiel, the Akademija likovnih umjetnosti, Sarajevo and the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee. They have lived and worked in Vienna since 2008.
