Africa press review
In the spotlight: African art exhibited in Dakar
Audio 04:08
Create, imagine and invent... it is around this triptych that the official international exhibition of the 14th edition of the Biennial of Contemporary African Art will take place (our illustration photo).
© RFI / Sébastien Jedor
By: Frédéric Couteau Follow
3 mins
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59 artists and artists' collectives to forge a new common destiny.
Create, imagine and invent.
It is around this triptych that the official international exhibition of the 14th edition of the Biennial of Contemporary African Art in Dakar will take place, which opens this Thursday, May 19, until June 21.
The official selection highlights the works of 59 visual artists and artist collectives from the continent and the diaspora.
Proof of the vitality of African art, the Off festival, which therefore welcomes artists outside the official exhibition, this festival lists more than 400 exhibition sites this year,
WalfQuotidien
points out .
That is 25% more than during the last edition in 2018. For Mauro Petroni, artist, ceramist, established in Senegal for several decades and in charge of this Off section since 2002, "
this growing number of Off exhibitors proves the interest operators for the Dakar Biennial, which is no longer a Dakar or Senegalese event.
We can see that the Biennale is spreading to other regions of Senegal, especially on the Petite Côte where there are a lot of sites this year, Saint-Louis, Tambacounda, Kédougou and several regional centres
”.
Creations inspired by the coronavirus
In this Off of the Dakar Biennale: the costume designer, stylist, decorator and jewelry designer, Oumou Sy, who presented her two installations to the press yesterday, at the Grand Théâtre Doudou Ndiaye Coumba Rose.
“
Integrating CDs, calabashes and other equally disconcerting objects into his creations, Le Quotidien
à Dakar notes that
Oumou Sy has still displayed his talents
.
With this time, dresses inspired by the coronavirus epidemic.
In particular, “
the health dress which symbolizes the effort of medical research on vaccines and also remedies.
"The threads that hang down from the installations represent the threads of life, she says, because life has long legs and it hangs by a thread".
Also to be seen in this Off, points out
Le Monde Afrique
, “
the artist Désiré Mounou Koffi who recycles mobile phones in very colorful creations inspired by portraits and scenes of daily life in Abidjan.
Its goal ?
Raising awareness of the fight against pollution in his works which he exhibits in Dakar but also in Abidjan until July.
“I chose recycling because I didn't want to limit my work to just painting. I wanted to bring something new,”
he explains
.
► To read also: Spearhead of African creativity, the Dakar Biennale is back
Subtle Africa on the Croisette
We remain in the artistic domain with the Cannes festival, seen from Africa.
“
There will be no Abderrahmane Sissako, nor Mahamat Saleh nor Mati Diop at this 2022 Cannes Film Festival,
notes the daily
Today
in Ouagadougou,
but the continent is very present through questions addressed by certain films with cross-cutting subjects: integration, religion, post-war reconciliation, sexual identity, history of African cinema.
And as if to mark this presence, the shadow of Africa hovered over the Croisette from the first film screened yesterday for the press:
For the Sake of Peace,
by Christophe Castagne and Thomas Sametin.
Hotly topical documentary film,
For the Sake of Peace
, evokes the situation in Sudan where there was war, the massacres of Darfuris… A peace that has come but remains to be consolidated.
»
And questions that remain unanswered, still notes
Today
: “
How to rebuild peace, social cohesion, living together?
For the Sake of Peace
was
produced by
American actor Forest Whitaker
, notes
WalfQuotidien.
“
The 60-year-old African-American actor isn't content to just shine in Hollywood.
Ten years ago, he created an NGO that fights poverty, from South Sudan to Mexico.
A humanitarian fiber born during the filming in Uganda, of
The Last King of Scotland,
by Kevin Macdonald in 2006, where he played Idi Amin Dada.
(…)
Forest Whitaker received an honorary Palme d'or the day before yesterday during the Opening Ceremony.
»
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