From Tunis to Trenton: Alia Bensliman Keeps Her Amazigh Heritage Alive Through Her Art

For Trenton-based artist Alia Bensliman, putting women at the center of her work is a responsibility she inherited from her late grandmother, the prominent Tunisian feminist Asma Belkhodja. Belkhodja served as the first Secretary General of the Union of Tunisian Women when the nation gained independence from France in 1956, and she was a singular and formative influence on her young granddaughter. “Because of my family,” Bensliman told Al-Bustan in an interview, “I grew up with the vocabulary of women’s rights.”