This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/20/thread-centre-senegal-where-local-traditions-and-modern-art-collide
The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Previous version
1
Next version
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Parched backwater in Senegal where local traditions and modern art collide | Parched backwater in Senegal where local traditions and modern art collide |
| (4 days later) | |
| As the midday sun glares down on the small Senegalese village of Sinthian, girls are preparing to dance. Dressed in bright batik fabrics and shaking their beaded drums, the girls – some barely 4ft, others in the lanky throes of adolescence – cut through the heady afternoon haze with a shrill chorus of call and response. | As the midday sun glares down on the small Senegalese village of Sinthian, girls are preparing to dance. Dressed in bright batik fabrics and shaking their beaded drums, the girls – some barely 4ft, others in the lanky throes of adolescence – cut through the heady afternoon haze with a shrill chorus of call and response. |
| The performance is a tradition that goes back generations but today the performers and villagers from the region have gathered in their thousands to celebrate an addition to their cultural landscape. Providing a backdrop and a venue for the ceremony is Thread, one of the first cultural centres and artist residencies of its kind outside the capital, Dakar, which opened its doors in Sinthian for the first time last week. | The performance is a tradition that goes back generations but today the performers and villagers from the region have gathered in their thousands to celebrate an addition to their cultural landscape. Providing a backdrop and a venue for the ceremony is Thread, one of the first cultural centres and artist residencies of its kind outside the capital, Dakar, which opened its doors in Sinthian for the first time last week. |
| Designed by award-winning New York architect Toshiko Mori and her team, it is a sophisticated yet vernacular building that will serve not only as a hub of local creativity for the village’s 700 residents but also as a residency for invited artists from both Senegal and abroad – be they filmmakers, sculptors, writers or photographers – to live and work in Sinthian for weeks at a time. | Designed by award-winning New York architect Toshiko Mori and her team, it is a sophisticated yet vernacular building that will serve not only as a hub of local creativity for the village’s 700 residents but also as a residency for invited artists from both Senegal and abroad – be they filmmakers, sculptors, writers or photographers – to live and work in Sinthian for weeks at a time. |
| The building is a work of art in itself. The dramatic curved roof is made entirely of local grass thatch and bamboo, while the simple white walls were built from locally made mud bricks and the heart of the building opens up to the sky. | The building is a work of art in itself. The dramatic curved roof is made entirely of local grass thatch and bamboo, while the simple white walls were built from locally made mud bricks and the heart of the building opens up to the sky. |
| This parched and poverty-stricken backwater of Senegal, more than eight hours from the capital, may seem an unlikely place for such a centre. Its origins lie in a chance meeting in 2003 between a Senegalese doctor and Sinthian leader, Dr Magueye Ba, and Nicholas Fox Weber, director of the American-based non-profit arts organisation the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. | This parched and poverty-stricken backwater of Senegal, more than eight hours from the capital, may seem an unlikely place for such a centre. Its origins lie in a chance meeting in 2003 between a Senegalese doctor and Sinthian leader, Dr Magueye Ba, and Nicholas Fox Weber, director of the American-based non-profit arts organisation the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. |
| Over the next decade, the pair embarked on an initiative to create a space that could become a point of collision between local cultural customs in Sinthian and Senegal’s burgeoning contemporary art scene. | Over the next decade, the pair embarked on an initiative to create a space that could become a point of collision between local cultural customs in Sinthian and Senegal’s burgeoning contemporary art scene. |
| Art is omnipresent in Dakar, from the successful African art biennale it has hosted since 1992 to the vivid murals adorning the walls, fishing boats and buses throughout the city. However, platforms for those outside the capital to create art and engage with a variety of art forms can be limited due to entrenched poverty and a lack of artistic infrastructure. | Art is omnipresent in Dakar, from the successful African art biennale it has hosted since 1992 to the vivid murals adorning the walls, fishing boats and buses throughout the city. However, platforms for those outside the capital to create art and engage with a variety of art forms can be limited due to entrenched poverty and a lack of artistic infrastructure. |
| Nick Murphy of the foundation, who will act as the director of Thread, said: “It’s very important this is not an oasis for Europeans or Americans to simply be airdropped into. | Nick Murphy of the foundation, who will act as the director of Thread, said: “It’s very important this is not an oasis for Europeans or Americans to simply be airdropped into. |
| “A key part about selecting the artists who will live here is they need to have the facility to be engaged with the local arts scene and learn and build on it in whatever medium they chose. And we just have to wait and see how the local community use the space; it is entirely theirs to do with as they wish.” | “A key part about selecting the artists who will live here is they need to have the facility to be engaged with the local arts scene and learn and build on it in whatever medium they chose. And we just have to wait and see how the local community use the space; it is entirely theirs to do with as they wish.” |
| At a time when local cultural creativity in Sinthian and the surrounding region is facing opposition from the increasingly conservative local Islamic leaders, Murphy acknowledged the arts centre would also play a role in safeguarding expression in the region. | At a time when local cultural creativity in Sinthian and the surrounding region is facing opposition from the increasingly conservative local Islamic leaders, Murphy acknowledged the arts centre would also play a role in safeguarding expression in the region. |
| “For various reasons, Sinthian isn’t a thriving arts community at the moment and there are pressures that are stifling some forms of artistic expression and creative expression,” he added. “That’s one of the reasons that Magueye was so eager for this project in the first place. As we’ve seen, the appetite for creativity is there in Sinthian, even if at the moment it is discouraged.” | “For various reasons, Sinthian isn’t a thriving arts community at the moment and there are pressures that are stifling some forms of artistic expression and creative expression,” he added. “That’s one of the reasons that Magueye was so eager for this project in the first place. As we’ve seen, the appetite for creativity is there in Sinthian, even if at the moment it is discouraged.” |
| For the first four months, only artists from the communities local to Sinthian will occupy the centre, before any foreign artists are invited – a vital part of ensuring Thread is fully accepted by both the local and national community. A rapper from a village bordering Sinthian who performed at the Thread opening ceremony will be among the first residents. | |
| Related: How Dakar's teeming markets give local artists a future outside their boundaries | Related: How Dakar's teeming markets give local artists a future outside their boundaries |
| Later on this year, the space will also host dancers from the celebrated British choreographer Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance company, who will create, perform and run workshops. | |
| Sidy Diallo will also be among the first to take up a residency this month. A painter and installation artist from Dakar whose work engages particularly with the issues around Africa’s development, he said he was “in the clouds” when he stepped into Mori’s design and planned to work on a performance piece involving the local community during his stay. | |
| Diallo said centres such as Thread were essential in helping combating the cultural exodus of west African countries such as Senegal, where many artists leave as soon as they find success. | |
| “There is a lot of demand from artists for a place like Thread,” said Diallo. “Usually everything is based in Dakar and we want to share what we create beyond just the capital. If you stay in one place, it is like working in a box. Your ideas run dry so the chance to come and work here I think will be a turning point in my art.” | |
| Another important Senegalese consultant on the project was Koyo Kouoh, the founding cultural director of art gallery Raw Material Company in Dakar, who will help select the artists for the residencies. Thread will act as a sister organisation to her Raw Material Company, which is one of the most progressive contemporary arts spaces in the country. | |
| It recently staged an exhibition titled Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness, examining homosexuality and homophobia in Senegal, where it is still illegal to be gay. Inviting artists to create pieces around the subject, including portraits of gay men in Nigeria and a video installation from a South African artist, it attracted widespread controversy and the gallery was forced to close for three days last year after it was vandalised and accused of promoting homosexuality. | It recently staged an exhibition titled Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media Surrounding African Queerness, examining homosexuality and homophobia in Senegal, where it is still illegal to be gay. Inviting artists to create pieces around the subject, including portraits of gay men in Nigeria and a video installation from a South African artist, it attracted widespread controversy and the gallery was forced to close for three days last year after it was vandalised and accused of promoting homosexuality. |
| “One hope I have for Thread is that this becomes a safe space for whatever form of self-expression people here want to exercise, and one can only hope that it will filter out into other parts of the community,” Murphy added. | “One hope I have for Thread is that this becomes a safe space for whatever form of self-expression people here want to exercise, and one can only hope that it will filter out into other parts of the community,” Murphy added. |
| As architect Mori is keen to emphasise, Thread was built over nine months by local labourers and craftsmen employing traditional techniques and modern construction methods. | |
| Mori – who did not charge a fee – stressed how important it was to her and designer Jordan Mactavish that the building blended naturally into the landscape. As such, the design drawings gave the local builders creative freedom, resulting in touches such as a beautiful mosaicked floor, inlaid with broken shards of tiles, flecked with blues, greens and reds, that were the cast-offs of local production. | Mori – who did not charge a fee – stressed how important it was to her and designer Jordan Mactavish that the building blended naturally into the landscape. As such, the design drawings gave the local builders creative freedom, resulting in touches such as a beautiful mosaicked floor, inlaid with broken shards of tiles, flecked with blues, greens and reds, that were the cast-offs of local production. |
| “We wanted to make a design that was as open, flexible and spontaneous as possible,” said Mori. “The idea was to leapfrog from vernacular to 21st-century engineering, but still using the materials they know and are familiar with. A local expert built the thatched roof and we only tweaked the structuring a little bit with a German engineer to make it stronger.” | “We wanted to make a design that was as open, flexible and spontaneous as possible,” said Mori. “The idea was to leapfrog from vernacular to 21st-century engineering, but still using the materials they know and are familiar with. A local expert built the thatched roof and we only tweaked the structuring a little bit with a German engineer to make it stronger.” |
| She added: “We did not want to just export something foreign because the local community would not feel they owned it or that it was their own space, so we were very careful.” | She added: “We did not want to just export something foreign because the local community would not feel they owned it or that it was their own space, so we were very careful.” |
| Thread will also serve a practical purpose, with the pitched roof capable of collecting approximately 40% of the villagers’ domestic water usage – around 200,000 gallons a year – by siphoning the rainfall and channeling it into a new reservoir. It is a design that has already won an AIA New York chapter award and was selected for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. | Thread will also serve a practical purpose, with the pitched roof capable of collecting approximately 40% of the villagers’ domestic water usage – around 200,000 gallons a year – by siphoning the rainfall and channeling it into a new reservoir. It is a design that has already won an AIA New York chapter award and was selected for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. |
| Back in the village, the opening ceremony may be over but the local community is far from finished. | Back in the village, the opening ceremony may be over but the local community is far from finished. |
| As the oppressive heat drives people under the sweeping eaves of Thread, the drumming once again starts up. It may only be a few days old but as the centre comes alive with a blur of yellow, magenta, green and blue fabrics and the sounds of fast footwork and clapping, one thing becomes clear. Artists may come and go, but at Thread there will always be dancing. | As the oppressive heat drives people under the sweeping eaves of Thread, the drumming once again starts up. It may only be a few days old but as the centre comes alive with a blur of yellow, magenta, green and blue fabrics and the sounds of fast footwork and clapping, one thing becomes clear. Artists may come and go, but at Thread there will always be dancing. |
| • This article was amended on 25 March 2015 to correct Sidy Diallo’s name and some details about the occupancy of the centre. An earlier version also said the centre was built using traditonal techniques, not modern construction methods. Both were used. |
Previous version
1
Next version