20 minutes off the coast of Dakar, the island of Gorée, a place of memory of the slave trade, is also one of the highlights of the “Off” Biennale of contemporary art. Sixteen exhibition spaces are taken over by artists this year, more than in previous editions. The Dapper Foundation, a benchmark in African art, presents the works of Congolese visual artist (DRC) Éric Androa Mindre Kolo and Mozambican photographer Mário Macilau.
It’s time for mass on the island of Gorée and it’s impossible to miss the Dapper Foundation, in a square between the church and the mosque. Éric Androa Mindre Kolo, artist, visual artist and performer from the DRC, has created an installation that looks like a house or a temple surmounted by large cow horns.
I was also inspired by the heritage that comes from my village in eastern Congo, including the cows that are used to pay the dowry for the wedding. The elders told me that the missionaries have banished everything, and I thought to myself that is where my work will begin. I’m going to snoop on everything that is beliefs of my origins to be able to build these lands.
When you enter, the ground is strewn with white gravel and hangings made of wax found in Dakar are hung. There are also mirrors, that allow us to look at ourselves now, who we are and perhaps also to think about the future, how we will be tomorrow “, emphasizes Éric Androa Mindre Kolo.
Say without denouncing
A game of mirrors between the past and the future is what photographer Mário Macilau also offers. Through the lens of the Mozambican artist, characters look at us, against a more blurred background. The director of the Dapper Foundation, Christiane Falgayrettes-Leveau, had wanted to exhibit Mário Macilau for a long time.
With distance and discretion, he superimposes the landscapes where we see the old buildings in ruins of the Portuguese colonization or people, women, children, a boy, cross the landscape. In fact, they are portraits without being portraits and they represent social classes. Personally, I find this work poignant because it wants to say without actually denouncing. We show, it’s up to you to watch, to judge, to make sure you move forward with us too. This is for the West too. But we must also go beyond this question because it is also up to Africans to build their future.
On the island of Gorée, the works of Éric Androa Mindre Kolo and Mário Macilau, at the Dapper Foundation, fit perfectly into the general theme of the Dakar Biennial of Contemporary Art: “Forging the future”.
► To read also: Spearhead of African creativity, the Dakar Biennale is back
