At one time, there were beaches stretching all over. They seemed so endless.
A sea of sand as soft, well-rounded, uniform. It streams through your fingers.
Often times, these beaches made you lose ground under your feet.
A parasol planted on these beaches made the view more agré-eable, at times.
Then one day, it was time!
Changeons de cap, allons vers d'autres rives !
I am now standing on this soil.
This soil is penetrated by water,
Embraced by spirit.
The title Embraced by a Blue Atlantic (1) was inspired by two memorable encounters I recently had.
The first one occurs in a taxi embarking from Popenguine back to Dakar. I just left people and homes filled with love and peace. I am in good spirits and in good company with the driver whose name is Malick. It is a sunny and humid day. The colors and scent of dawn are palpable filterings through my sunglasses. My eyes are wide open. There he is Monsieur Guèye standing on a wide road. As soon as his silhouette appears to us, we stop at once and give him a lift. He is impressively tall and has grey hair. Once he enters the car, we swiftly start a conversation. Monsieur Guèye is a History and Geography teacher who retired from his position at school two years ago. After a short while, he explains to me that the Cap-Vert peninsula Dakar - Ndakaaru - Dëkk Raw means safe haven. Surrounded by a blue Atlantic, Dakar and its periphery stretch themselves and touch the facing shores, spaces, and people.
The second encounter happens just a few months later. Artist Cheikh Ndiaye and I meet for dinner at a Senegalese restaurant in Brooklyn. Outside, the lanterns are dimly lit. Inside, the restaurant is filled with words, laughter and some afrobeat. It is warm. At one point in our conversation, Cheikh shares with me how Dakar - Ndakaru - Dëkk Raw has had a long history of being a place of “refuge for the oppressed of all origins“ (2). No later than the 15th century, Dakar was enacted by some Lebou fishermen who were fleeing Takrur, a kingdom located in the North-East of the Senegal River began to settle there. According to various scholars, including the great thinker Cheikh Anta Diop, the Lebous are said to be the descendants of a Nile Valley community that ancient Egyptians called The People of the Sea.
Embraced by a blue Atlantic - how does Dakar translate this legacy today? What do the close and distant surroundings of Dakar reflect back to its people and space? How do visible and invisible lives passing through water connect with one another and diffuse themselves?
With these ideas in mind, I am bringing the following 3 artists together: Muhsana Ali, Ayesha Harruna Attah, and Mbaye Babacar Diouf. They live and work in Dakar and in its periphery.
Aïcha Diallo was born and raised in Berlin, Germany, with a Guinean francophone heritage. She is a cultural producer and interdisciplinary thinker. Diallo has worked for the pan-African cultural platform Chimurenga in Cape Town, the exhibition project prêt-à-partager with ifa (German Institute for International Cultural Relations), edited the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s online publication Living Archive: Kulturelle Produktionen und Räume (Living Archive: Cultural Productions and Spaces) and Aperture magazine edition #227 titled Platform Africa as guest contributing editor along with late Bisi Silva and John Fleetwood and was one of the founding members and actors of the Black German performance platform Label Noir. Furthermore, Diallo was managing editor of the art magazine Contemporary And (C&) – Platform for Contemporary Art from Africa and its Global Diaspora. She holds a B.A. in European Studies from Queen Mary, University of London and an M.A. in Intercultural Education from Freie Universität Berlin. Aïcha Diallo is a connector who aims to build and bring together communities, ideas and practices translocally.
Miseducation series, 20 cm x 30cm, edition of 3, 2019
US-born, Muhsana Ali is an award-winning multidimensional artist who has studied throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master in Art Education.
In 1997, on the Ivory Coast, she produced a major exhibition entitled Doors and Passages of the Return which was presented in an abandoned building inhabited by a gang of homeless youth. This participatory show was a major turning point in her career which resulted in her shift towards community-based art. With her husband artist Amadou Kane Sy, she co-founded the association Portes et Passages which runs a center for art and holistic development near Joal-Fadiouth, Senegal. Ali has initiated several art projects for the revitalization of communities in Senegal and the United States. Her work is expressed through a variety of media including alternative mosaic, painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, installations photography and video. She is presently producing an installation for the new permanent collection of African Art commissioned by the Penn Museum in Philadelphia.
Tissu Humain, acrylic on canvas, 130 cm x 100 cm, 2019
Based in Dakar, Senegal, Mbaye Babacar Diouf graduated from the National School of Arts of Senegal in 2007 and holds a Master 2 degree from the Higher Institute of Arts and Cultures of the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. He is one of the most prominent young Senegalese artists of his generation. After receiving several national prizes, he has won a silver medal at the last Francophonie games in Abidjan in 2017. His works have been presented at various international exhibitions and fairs, such as Art Paris Art Fair, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, or the Dak’Art International Biennale of Contemporary African Art.
His artistic approach is characterized by two aspects: On the one hand, Diouf talks to us about signs, writing that he elaborates by drawing inspiration from signs that recall hieroglyphics, Arabic writing or other ancient civilizations. This work based on the notion of "rhythm" refers to the notions of memory, identity, code, mysticism, and imprint. He is an artist who always seeks the intimate relationship between graphic signs and the human mind that creates them voluntarily, spontaneously or unconsciously. On the other hand, Diouf addresses the question of the human condition by questioning the relationship of the individual to others or to his social environment.
A Haiku, 2019
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Ayesha Harruna Attah grew up in Accra, Ghana, and was educated at Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and New York University. She is the author of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated Harmattan Rain, Saturdays Shadows, and The Hundred Wells of Salaga, currently translated into four languages. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Elle Italia, Asymptote Magazine, and the 2010 Caine Prize Writers’ Anthology. Attah is an Instituto Sacatar Fellow and was awarded the 2016 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship for nonfiction. She lives in Senegal.
The Hundred Wells of Salaga, 2019
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Ayesha Harruna Attah grew up in Accra, Ghana, and was educated at Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and New York University. She is the author of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated Harmattan Rain, Saturdays Shadows, and The Hundred Wells of Salaga, currently translated into four languages. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Elle Italia, Asymptote Magazine, and the 2010 Caine Prize Writers’ Anthology. Attah is an Instituto Sacatar Fellow and was awarded the 2016 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship for nonfiction. She lives in Senegal.