The Green Book is an exhibition highlighting and documenting the changes in the social fabric of Libya, throughout the years. The proposal by Libyan artist and founder of WaraQ art foundation, Tewa Bernosa, comes as a result of an open call for artists to research quotes from the Green Book.

In 1975, Mouammar Kadhafi writes The Green Book, where he rages against liberal democracy and capitalism, proposing instead, his Third Universal Theory: a system of people’s committees. Libyan children spent two hours a week studying the book as part of their curriculum. Excerpts were broadcasted every day on television and radio. Its slogans were also found on billboards and painted on buildings in Libya.

For the exhibition, Tewa Bernosa has chosen several artworks referring to specific chapters of the Green Book. For example, the quote “The house for who lives in it” which led at a certain period in time, to a chaotic situation, where people took over the lands of others and everyone was afraid of loosing his belongings, home and job.
The exhibition highlights the socio-political effect of the book, written to be a solution for democracy as claimed, and how it caused a deep damage in the societal structure of Libya.

This exhibition is a follow up to a residency of Suhaib Tantoush at Le Cube – independent art room and part of the project travelling narratives. The latter is a regional program of art and research that aims at encouraging interactions between cultural agents in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania and Libya.
Through the organization of a cycle of residencies, exhibitions, screenings, meetings, workshops and conferences, this project strives to cross and connect micro-stories from North Africa in order to discover and disseminate endogenous stories of these territories and to collectively imagine new social and cultural utopias from these alternative narratives.
Traveling narratives is supported by AFAC – The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Goethe-Institut Marokko, the Institut Français du Maroc, the Centre Jacques Berque and the Ministry of Culture and Communication in Morocco. The program is carried out in partnership with Townhouse, مؤسسة ورق للفنون – WaraQ art foundation and the cultural space Diadie Tabara Camara.

Documentation
• Leaflet of the exhibition
• “Ainsi parlait le livre vert” by Houda Outarahout in Diptyk