“Les Têtes are not afraid to die” – An Interview with Les Têtes de l’Art Director Sam Khebizi

An interview with longtime ECF collaborator and friend of our foundation Sam Khebizi of Les Têtes de l’Art, originally published in our 2025 annual magazine Common Ground.

Can you tell us what les Têtes de l’Art is?
Sam Khebizi: Basically, it’s an organisation that helped me match two key aspects of my life. One is my background in acting: I studied at the conservatory and was their first student from Maghreb origin in 30 years. I was promised to become a big new actor. The second aspect is linked to my social engagement. In Marseille I used to work as an animator for young children and young teenagers, in a very social cultural approach, which differed from the field of culture with a big C I was surrounded with at the conservatory. But I was not happy in both of them, so I wanted to create a bridge between Culture and social culture. I started Les Têtes de l’Art to combine socially engaged arts and all cultural disciplines. I would say Les Têtes de l’Art is a tool for challenging society.

And from that approach we created different departments of activity. The eldest one is dedicated to participatory art practises, which is quite common today. But in the 90ies it was considered a bit naive. Our second cluster grew from a demand from our growing community to support them in the development of their activities. Supporting this third cultural sector – not publicly organised, outside of the industry of culture – is a very political project as it is precisely this sector that ensures the diversity of the cultural ecosystem, guaranteeing our social links on the ground. And, you know, it is this sector that is the most fragile, for when there is no money, this part is cut first. We support this third sector on all the aspects which are not artistic, so the communities can focus on their artistic output. Our third cluster is about international cooperation, which doubles as our research and development department.

In all of our work we invite researchers as we believe in the exchange between practitioners and researchers. It helps us to take a step back and have a better understanding of what we are doing. Once a social scientist wrote about Les Têtes de l’Art: “They are still alive because they are not afraid to die.” It’s a quote I really like. For I am not proud that we soon will be 30 years old, I’m proud because after 30 years Les Têtes are still very much alive.

Let’s talk about Marseille, your place of birth and the city you work in. What is Marseille for you? 
It’s a city we should write with the S at the end because there are several Marseilles. You have to understand that Marseille is 111 connected neighbourhoods – with each neighbourhood acting as a village – and it’s a big city, the second city in France. The village feel in the neighbourhoods ensures it’s a city where you can easily not feel anonymous, you are seen. The second aspect of Marseille, is that it’s a chaotic and passionate city, you like it or you don’t like it. Marseille shapes the way I think, I couldn’t like a nice but boring city. The same counts for the people I like, I prefer people who have lots of qualities and lots of defaults above plain characters who have nothing to say.

A few years ago, Doug Saunders wrote a book about ‘arrival cities’ in which he describes migration patterns, often to harbor cities like Marseille. He then describes the ‘glass ceilings’ or ‘concrete floors’ people arriving with dreams and ambitions for their futures encounter. Doug Saunders argued the Tahrir Square protest in Caïro were a direct outcome of migrants not able to break the glass ceiling and join ruling classes. When we look at Marseille as an arrival city, what is the function of Marseille for France as a country?
Marseille is a real face of France, unfiltered. And it’s still a welcoming city. Which was even mentioned by the pope when he visited Marseille last year, and not Paris. Macron had to come to Marseille. Historically Marseille is a rebel city.  To such an extent that sometime in the 18th century during a period of monarchy, the king decided to point the cannons on the city walls unto the city rather than towards the sea. But sometimes Marseille is also France’s black sheep.

Marseille is a city divided in two, with the northern parts being more working class and poor compared to the rich southern parts. The price per square meter of a house is 1,500 Euros in the north and ten times that in the south. That is one of the big differences in this city. Marseille is also one of the last left-wing cities in the south of France, but the southern neighourhoods are clearly right wing oriented. But I have no doubt that when the Rassemblement National might in future take the lead of the country, Marseille with its strong civil society will be a hotbed of resistance.

Then there is the widely reported on influx from Parisians to Marseille. What differences does it make in the city? Asking as Les Têtes de l’Art was involved in the ECF coordinated Culture for Solidarity research into gentrification processes.
Gentrification is an ongoing process, with negative and positive sides to it. The general division between the northern and southern parts of the city will most likely not change. But in the first eight districts of Marseille there is pressure on the mixed city with housing prices on the rise, as part of the previous city government’s desire to kick out poverty from the city centre by artificially putting university students and artists in there. And – as in other cities – Marseille suffers from the AirBnB’isation of the city centre.

As vice-president of the regional chamber for social economy I learned that in the greater Marseille region there are 50,000 registered nonprofit organisations in the field of culture, with 10,000 of them based in the city centre. Many of them represent the voice of inhabitants and help resist planned gentrification. A recent example is the trial of officials of the previous city-government responsible for the collapsing of two buildings on Rue d’Aubagne – who would not have been brought to justice if it were not for civil society to act.

You mentioned the regional chamber for social economy, and you are also active in the Mediterranean Youth Council, which both bring together many civil society organisations. To what purpose?
Firstly, we cannot do anything alone. The general strategy of Les Têtes de l’Art is to always ask for support, to create synergies as to offer more possibilities to participants in our programmes. I strongly believe in the image of a bunch of keys we should offer them, and not just one magical key, so that in each situation they can find the right one or create their own bunch. This is why I think organisations need working together.

Let’s talk about Europe à la barre, Les Têtes’ dramatised trial to open debates and reflections about Europe’s major issues. How did it come about?
We started Europe à la barre for two reasons. The first – not directly linked to the mock trial – comes from our desire to connect to our political surroundings. For I believe arts and culture have a role to play here: too often we believe European sentiments should be based on intellectual, sometimes even moral, arguments. The extreme right however have understood that addressing irrational fears pays off. Art can be a powerful tool to touch on those non-intellectual sensations. We should use our skills and knowledge to try working in different ways on key societal topics as European sentiment or democracy.

The form of the trial allows to bring different types of argument to the fore. I mean the pro-Europeans are gathering in their own circles, so do the anti-Europeans. The trial allows for a large number of arguments to be shared so at the end the audience have a deeper understanding of the topics at hand. They can stop repeating the things they heard on social media or where ever. By the way, we are still looking for international partners to adapt the trial to other country’s settings.

The principle of a trial touches on how we experience democracy. I mostly describe democracy as a space full of silly people that don’t think like us and that we have to learn to live together anyway. If you don’t accept other people’s arguments, you have a wrong idea about democracy.

So, the trial is a cultural means to have polarised discussions take place in one space with no decision being made in the end?
Exactly, it’s like at the end of a film, the decision is yours. What we try doing is enlarging the skillset to debate, to exchange views. For we need to relearn how to deal with conflicts, to manage them and turn them into something positive. I believe the role of culture is to bring different views together, so people can make a better judgement for themselves.