Djerba
— — a white island the sea forgot to take back.
Not only on a wall.
“A flat limestone island in the Gulf of Gabès, joined to the Tunisian mainland by a Roman-built causeway still in use. Whitewashed houses with blue doors, domed menzels in the olive groves, the spice and silver souks of Houmt Souk, and the small fortified synagogue of El Ghriba — one of the oldest continually used Jewish places of worship in the world. The light here is hard and clean, even in winter. — from the studio
Djerba, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Djerba is a low limestone island in the Gulf of Gabès, off Tunisia's southeastern coast, with a land area of about 514 square kilometres — the largest island in North Africa. It is linked to the mainland at Zarzis by the Roman causeway of El Kantara, built in the 1st century BC and still carrying road traffic today. The island holds roughly 160,000 residents, concentrated in Houmt Souk and the southern villages of Midoun, Aghir, and Erriadh. UNESCO inscribed Djerba on the World Heritage list in 2023 as a cultural landscape of settlement organised around water and faith.
Djerban architecture is its own school: low whitewashed houses called menzels, each set in its own walled garden of olives, date palms, and pomegranate; small domed mosques scattered across the countryside rather than gathered into a single quarter; and underground cisterns called fesqia that collect the island's scarce rainfall. The synagogue of El Ghriba in Erriadh dates in its current form to the 19th century, but tradition places a Jewish presence on the island to the 6th century BC after the destruction of the First Temple. The annual Lag BaOmer pilgrimage there draws visitors from across the Mediterranean.
Houmt Souk, the island's main town, holds the Tuesday and Friday markets in its old caravanserai courtyards, the Borj el Kebir Spanish fort (1392), and the spice and silver shops that fill the lanes around Place Sidi Brahim. The El Ghriba synagogue sits in the inland village of Erriadh, about seven kilometres south. Most visitors arrive through Djerba–Zarzis International Airport on the western side of the island or by car across the El Kantara causeway from the mainland. The climate is hot-summer Mediterranean; the best months are March through May and September through November.