Ridha Moumni

Ridha Moumni
Period: 2010-2011
Profession: Art historian Ridha Moumni was born in Tunis in 1979. He completed his studies in Art History and Archaeology at the Université Paris 4 – Sorbonne, where he defended a doctoral thesis under the supervision of François Baratte and Nathalie de Chaisemartin, devoted to the religious architecture and history of North Africa in the Punic and Roman periods. Winner of several international research grants, he has taken part in excavation campaigns in Carthage and Italy, and has honed his experience in cultural site management at UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre. His research focuses mainly on questions of identity in Tunisia and the Maghreb, with a particular interest in the meeting of Eastern and Western civilizations on African soil, both in ancient and modern times. Appointed a resident at the Académie de France in Rome for a period of eighteen months, his project for the Villa Médicis is entitled “Tunisian antiquities in the museums of France and Italy: the export of antiquities and the reception of antiquities in the Regency of Tunis (1574-1881)”. Through an examination of the context of antiquities discoveries in Ottoman Tunisia, this work, which follows on from her doctoral thesis, enables her to address issues linked to the reception of antiquities in an Arab-Muslim country.