The exhibition presented in Dakar is now on show at la Galerie du 19M. It combines embroidery and weaving, two crafts in which Senegal excels, with other artistic disciplines and contemporary creation mediums. It invites you to a journey through time and space, materials and techniques, styles and signs. It celebrates material dexterity, highlights ingenious savoir-faire, and bears witness to the creative wealth offered by weaving and embroidery, whether on leather, wool, silk, raffia, cotton, or synthetic materials.
This exhibition brings together some thirty works and installations by nearly thirty emerging and established contemporary artists and craftsmen from Senegal, Mali, South Africa, and France. Several works have been borrowed from artists or public or private collections, while others have been specially produced, some in collaboration with the Maisons d’art of le19M, building bridges between Aubervilliers and Dakar.
The exhibition charts certain Senegalese skills: weaving and embroidery are thus complemented by a section on indigo dyeing—a sustainable practice that is particularly widespread in Senegal and continues to be modernised by a young generation of passionate creators—and a focus on Casamance, the cradle of the pagne tissé fabric tradition. Other regional crafts from Senegal are also celebrated, notably those from Saint-Louis, Cayor, and Sine Saloum.
The diversity of this programme speaks to the continued transmission of artistic and craft knowledge demonstrated by the contemporary creators in Senegal invited to this event on the theme of giving and receiving.
The exhibition Sur le fil: de Dakar à Paris is accompanied by a multi-faceted cultural programme of workshops through which to discover the artistic crafts, talks, and performances. Bringing together artists, artisans, and performers whose work resonates with the vibrancy of the Dakar art scene, it honours the geography of Dakar and Senegal’s savoir-faire, explores its civility and artistic effervescence, and examines its perception by the Afropean diasporas.
