Artist Talk: Export-Import

Younes Baba-Ali, Mbaye Diop, Hamedine Kane and Jennifer Houdrouge were in conversation with Aude Tournaye, art critic and independent curator on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition "Export-Import" at Selebe Yoon.

Event date: 17/05 at 6PM - Selebe Yoon

Aude Tournaye: First of all, I'd like to ask you, Jennifer, where did the idea come from to do this exhibition and to bring specifically these three artists together?

Jennifer Houdrouge: The idea for this exhibition stems from work we've been doing for several months, or even years for some of us. We first worked together in Paris last year. The three artists work on the links between West Africa and Europe, but through different prisms and very different activities. Here we're talking about tennis, pigeon racing, [Senegalese] wrestling and fishing. So it was interesting to see how these links with Europe were explored, from both a historical and contemporary perspective.

Aude Tournaye: Could you all give us a brief introduction to what you're exhibiting? And then we'll go into more detail.

Hamedine Kane: It's always a bit difficult to comment on works that have just been created. What interested me was travelling the Senegalese coastline and working with the fishing communities, seeing the state of this sector, of the users of the sea, both from a legal point of view and out of personal interest and curiosity. I also wanted to see how this sector fits into the Senegalese economy, the African economy, the West African economy, and from the food point of view, the economic point of view, human rights, conservation and finally the exploitation of resources. I'm not just talking about fisheries resources, but also the resources of our territories in general, how states or populations manage them and how they fit into the global economy. I wanted to see what artists can propose when they take on such a subject. Of course, artists have no power to fundamentally change things, but I think they have an important role to play in mobilising and making available a way of seeing things. The point, I think, is to create the right distance so that we can look at these things in a rawer way. That's what I've tried to do - and it's just a start. It's the first iteration. Last summer, for a month, I traveled throughout the coastline and collected information, a sort of primary research material. This is the first formal report. And it's going to continue over the coming years.

Younes Baba-Ali: For my part, I'm presenting two different projects. One was produced in 2018 for the Biennale [of Dakar], a project on Senegalese wrestling. It's not an insignificant thing - the choice of works presented was made with Jennifer - in particular as a nod to the other artists' proposals, but also in connection with the very origin of the project I'm currently working on, the LOFT - DKR project about pigeon racing in Senegal. It was the world of wrestlers that introduced me to pigeon racing. I used to work with various amateur wrestlers in neighbourhoods like Amitié and SICAP. Every time I'd look up, I'd see colourful pigeons, fluorescent pink or green, and I'd wonder what they were doing there. These pigeons were circling around us, around the buildings. I realised that there was a whole parallel world that existed on the rooftops of Dakar, this world of pigeon fanciers that involves some pretty incredible young people. You have to understand that the average age of pigeon fanciers in Senegal is 16, unlike in Europe where it's more of a passion for older people. Here, when we go to dovecotes, neighbourhood pigeon lofts, there's the owner and a dozen or so young enthusiasts aged between 8 and 18. This discovery was the starting point that made me want to work on pigeon racing. Being based in Belgium, I didn't even know that it was the worldwide heart of pigeon racing. Since November, I've been working on a project with an experimental pigeon loft at the Hôtel de Ville in Dakar, designed with a Spanish architect, Angel Montero, with the idea of building a loft where new breeds of pigeon could be tested. At the same time, we're working with new technologies by fitting trackers to the pigeons so that we can retrieve their data in real time and then map their movements. In the gallery, in the exhibition, there are elements of research that question the origins of pigeon racing in Senegal, which is still a big question for me. I still don't know how this passion took such a hold on the souls of Senegalese youth!

Mbaye Diop: The work I present here is a follow-up to a residency at Selebe Yoon in 2022, entitled "Balle de match", which was a reflection on the architecture of Dakar. It's true that when you look at the works on display, you wonder about the link between architecture and tennis. Tennis is nothing more than a pretext, a sort of metaphor used to show that we are in a struggle. When I talk about Dakar, we are in a struggle, in a combat, in a perpetual confrontation from an architectural point of view. When I began my research, I saw that the first settlers who arrived in Senegal played this sport. In terms of numbers, two people are enough to play this sport, but the rules are complex. They played this sport and all around the pitches, there were the locals who watched the matches and perhaps even wanted to take part in the game. And my first idea was to try and relocate this sport and bring it to the streets. Why on the streets? Because in Dakar, there are no sports facilities that would give the people of Dakar the chance to express themselves. So let's play tennis in the street, let's play tennis everywhere, even if we're constantly confronted with danger.

Aude Tournaye: I'd like to start with something you've just raised, Mbaye - you used the word relocate. For me, there's something that runs through all your works, and that's the idea that you call to relocate. There's of course the idea of tennis as an imported product, which you use as a metaphor. Younes, you mention pigeon racing which, as you say, you don't really know where it comes from, but it's very present. And where tennis hasn't taken root, pigeon racing seems to be a big hit. And Hamedine, you may not use the word relocate, but in many of your works, on the assemblages you make with doors, I've seen that you've often used the word "territorialisation". So I wanted to ask you a question about that. I think the beauty of these works is that they are pivotal. And I'm not saying this because they are doors or windows, but this work is reminiscent of what you did a few years ago on the subject of migration. I wanted to ask you a fairly specific question about this idea of de-territorialisation and how your own work deals with this issue, because there is a notion of territorialisation in migration, refugees, the fact of perhaps re-territorialising, if I use the words of Deleuze, and your film La Maison Bleue, from 2020, for example. So, perhaps to begin with, I'd like to talk a little more about this idea of territorialisation and how it is triggered off in different forms? For me, it's a constant value in your work.

Hamedine Kane: It's a very complex question, but you're right to say that this work is a turning point - it's a continuity, a kind of maturity, I think. To come back to deterritorialisation, when Deleuze talks about it, he's also talking about birds or pigeons, birds that, when they're in a territory, recognise each other. As soon as they leave the territory, they call themselves a pair of birds. But as soon as they cross the border, it's as if they've never seen each other before. That's the image of deterritorialisation. And it also has something to do with tennis, because every tennis player has a style, they're stylists like writers, like artists. For me, what interests me is being outside one's territory: what Edward Saïd calls "out of place", never being in one's place. I think it's a state that suits me well, not just physically, but morally too - a geo-location that is constantly being relocated. The idea of this project was also to work on forms, because artists make forms. We're not philosophers, novelists or public commentators. A visual artist proposes forms. And it's very interesting to work in Dakar because the whole city is made up of informal art objects. The most interesting installations are to be found in the markets or on the streets. That's the difficulty - to manage to create an interesting distance for something to be revealed. What I like is that the surfaces of my paintings have become like schoolboards for me. I can write and draw on them, I can make geometric and architectural shapes, I can construct things. I can't colour, I can't really draw. But when I see an image, I recognise it. All I can do is see it and take note of it.

Aude Tournaye: I have another question linked to this idea of 'noticing'. The project, as you say, is a continuation of your work, but it was commissioned by a legal firm [ClientEarth]. I have a question about how you navigate this form of legal documentation as an artist, how do you find the balance in your work? And how has this project opened you up to new forms of 'seeing'?

Hamedine Kane: This is the first time I've been contacted by an organisation that has legal expertise in the rights of sea users and fishermen. They wanted to work with an artist to bring a different perspective to the situation. And that interests me, the idea of law and human rights in general, but also to have experience…? legal expertise to work on the reasons why Senegalese or African resources are available to the world outside a legal framework. I'm not saying that it's the fault of European boats, because what European boats did in Senegalese territorial waters, they did in European territorial waters 20-30 years ago. Why can't they do it any more? Because the European institutions have created a legal framework, so they no longer have the right to do it in Europe, but they can still do it here. It's an important question, but it's not just about peace, it's also about all the other resources. What interests me is how, based on an article of law or legal expertise, the name of a fish or a species of fish, a territory and the use of these resources in that territory, I can create a new word or a new form of expression.

Aude Tournaye: Thank you Hamedine. As we're talking about fishing and legal issues, Younes, in your work Daily Wrestling there's a fisherman fighting against his fishing net - a confrontation against the metaphorical objects of their daily struggle. There are legal reasons for this too, aren't there?

Younes Baba-Ali: The Daily Wrestling project is one that has taken a long time to set up, like many of my projects in Senegal. I've been here almost since 2012 and I've been nourished by the Senegalese soil and popular culture. I was lucky enough to meet my first wrestler, who then introduced me to his world. They're not professional wrestlers. Like half of Senegalese people, they work during the day and in the evening they have a passion: wrestling, pigeon racing or economics, parallel activities. What I found beautiful above all is that Senegal is one of the rare countries that has a national sport other than football, where wrestling is a sport in its own right. Because for me, wrestling is more than just a sport, it's a whole state of mind, a philosophy, a spirituality, an economic system, even an education. The wrestler is an ambassador for a whole neighbourhood. So a successful wrestler is someone who has power, who can pass on knowledge, finance and motivate others. I wanted to work with these people, these popular ambassadors, to question things in their own daily lives, in their own wrestling. And I was lucky enough to work with a fisherman in particular, but also with a woman wrestler, which is quite rare. Even though there's a great school of women's wrestling in Casamance, you very rarely see women's wrestling on television. There's no promotion like there is for male wrestlers. In 2018, I met this fisherman who was a bit like a mermaid, in the sense that he was a man of the sea who lives from the sea, but who also suffers from the sea. At the time of this project, the Senegalese had more and more restrictions in terms of fishing, where they could no longer go to the depths, they could no longer use certain techniques, while facing them, they had an incredible industry with factory ships that outstripped them, that freed them from their own territory. Metaphorically, the fisherman wanted to symbolically fight this fishing net, like the struggle of an obstacle that is beyond its limits. At the time of the event, spectators were expecting real fights and suddenly they were watching a man fighting with a net or a woman with cans. Gradually, though, people got the hang of it and got involved in the message. 

Aude Tournaye: Thank you, Younes. Perhaps, as we're on the idea of wrestling, and you used this word, Mbaye, I think that the approach in your work, Younes, and in Mbaye's, is a bit similar in that there's this idea of wrestling or tennis as a metaphor. Mbaye, I'd like to come back to the fact that, as you said, this is work that you've been doing since 2022 and the "Balle de Match" exhibition at the gallery. How has this work evolved? As you say, at the beginning it was mainly about competition, a struggle between everyday life and architecture. Now there's a new, interactive work, where the adversary becomes the public. So I'd like to ask you why the public becomes the adversary, why it's no longer just the city?  And how do you see this new role for the public?

Mbaye Diop: During my residency at Selebe Yoon in 2022, I used to walk the streets of Dakar with my racket. Often, there was no ball. I'd meet people, give them the racket and try to mimic the movements of a tennis match. It's quite simple, I was there, and there was a player in front of me with the racket, and I tried to mimic the direction of the ball, and people were happy to play this game. They’d react without actually seeing the ball. And then I thought I'd like to imagine an interactive work where people could play with me, but a drawn me. I made a series of drawings of myself in all the possible positions and every time one of the members of the public plays, it's as if we were actually playing in the streets of Dakar.

Aude Tournaye: To come back to something we haven't talked about yet, which is pigeon racing, I wanted to see with you, Younes, as Mbaye talked about the architecture of Dakar, how your project began. There's an aspect that we don't see much here at the gallery, but that we do see at the Town Hall, that of the architecture of pigeon fanciers in Dakar, which transforms the city in a way that's hardly visible unless you climb onto the roofs. So I'd like you to tell us a bit about this new form of architecture and how you set it up and reinvented it, and what was the idea behind the dovecote at Dakar’s Town Hall?

Younes Baba-Ali: As I was saying, it all started when I discovered this parallel world on the rooftops of Dakar. If you're lucky enough to go to areas like the Médina, where there's a large concentration of pigeon fanciers, at around 4-5pm you start to see people coming out and pigeons circling around. And you can see that there's a whole village on the roofs, buildings made from fairly poor materials, like reclaimed wood and metal. It's a raw aesthetic and it's almost like a new city within the city, where these enthusiasts escape, a stratum of the city where, when you find yourself there, you're disconnected. Afterwards, I discovered that there is an economy around pigeon racing, which is perhaps a new form of economy for young people. Racing pigeons are expensive - the most expensive pigeon comes from Antwerp and was sold for 1.2 million euros a year and a half ago. He left Belgium to go to China and create a whole new generation of pigeons. I think there's a whole generation of young people who admire this possibility, a bit like a diptych with wrestling, which is also a way out. If you manage to become a professional wrestler, you're established for the long term, you're sure you're going to earn a living, be able to feed your family, even your whole neighbourhood. And I have the impression that pigeon racing has become a highly coveted professional and economic future. The idea was to make the project open to the public, and so we discussed it with Jennifer, and we were lucky that the Town Hall appreciated the proposal and made the esplanade available to us. We then designed the project to create a mobile pigeon loft, like a military base, which is easily modulated and mobile. The structure of this loft can be dismantled and will continue its adventures elsewhere. After this stage after Senegal, my intention is to bring it back to Belgium and continue the project with other people, other young enthusiasts. The architectural aspect is very interesting in terms of animal architecture. In Dakar, Senegal, and in Senegalese culture in general, there is a strong culture of animal husbandry, and the migration to the big city has meant that many people have lost the traditional system of animal husbandry and are trying to rediscover it in their own way, on their roofs or in front of their houses. We often see a few sheep lying around, but with the new forms of architecture comes the question of urban livestock farming. When we see new buildings, we no longer think of these spaces, these communal spaces where we could have chickens or animals.

Aude Tournaye: Thank you, Younes. Mbaye, listening to you and looking around me, I notice that in the pieces you did in 2022, there aren't many animals. And in the ones for 2024, I see a lot. Why do you think that is?

Mbaye Diop: So... First of all, the starting point for these works is photographs. All the drawings I've done are based on photographs. And in these works [Pop Tennis, 2024], it's all about staging. Apart from the tennis player, there's nothing of the original image. I took other elements to try and create a composition that met my expectations. Sheep do appear, as Younes has just said, when you walk through the streets of Dakar, in front of houses and in the street. But there are also dogs, chickens, a broken chair and an old car - an old car that's no longer of any use, but it's still there. So I wanted to do a reconstruction of these elements to get a chaotic yet familiar image behind this chaos, there's a certain cheerfulness, and people live in this total disorder where you can express yourself, where you can find happiness in disorder.

Jennifer Houdrouge: I think it's also very much linked to public space and the clutter of public space, which is something you've dealt with a lot in your work. There's a question you often ask that always puzzles me: why can't people stay at home? In Dakar, why does life exist on the sidewalks? It's also very much linked to the question of habitat, and habitat that is perhaps not necessarily adapted to our way of life. The appearance of the animals is not insignificant; it's really linked, I think, to this theme that you've already explored in your previous work.

Mbaye Diop: It's true that in Dakar, life is spent more outdoors than indoors. If you look closely, the facades are more decorated than the interiors, so in reality, people are more in front of their houses and their whole life is spent outside. Why is this? Don't we need to think about how we design our indoor living spaces so that people have more time to do things other than being exposed to danger? When you're outside, you're more exposed - and the danger is there, it's permanent and we live with it permanently.

Aude Tournaye: Hamedine, I'd like to come back to your work. You have a drone video that doesn't directly show individuals but an almost abandoned community. Then there's a series of short videos, mostly of women, which I'd like to use to come back to the idea of deterritorialisation, in a more human way. You draw a territory lived through women, don't you? And many of the places you note are often Lebou places, very specific spiritual and lived territories. So I'd like to ask you, through your work, how you see these things changing? How are these territories being redrawn? Is there an element of rejection in all this? There are also slingshots on display that allude to resistance, to "not letting yourself be done in".

Hamedine Kane: In this video, what we see is an example of a magnificent facility that has been rendered utilitarian. This is the place in Saint-Louis, in Guet Ndar, where the women transform fresh fish into dried fish. Each woman has her own little box, made from reclaimed wood. These are boxes made by carpenters - quite interesting shapes. I wanted to focus on women's work, because the fishing industry is a chain. There are those who make the pirogues, those who make the nets, the fishermen, the fishmongers, the retailers, the processors and the transporters. A lot of people make a living from it, and it's an important part of the Senegalese economy. In fact, we wonder why a government that wants social peace would allow this sector to deteriorate. It's really incomprehensible. And why women? Because there are more women because the men are leaving. To go fishing, you have to be young and strong. The Senegalese coasts are emptied of their young people because there are no more fish, so they take their pirogues and leave. And as it's the women who stay, they're the ones who know how to talk about it - because you have to be able to talk about absence and those who are absent. But in the video, there's always this idea of ruin. Something that is in the process of being ruined and I wanted to see how we could sublimate all that to some extent. How to recover, regenerate things, give them a voice. That's why I found it interesting to insert moving, living images, in a sort of chaos in my paintings, and to add colours, to make things vibrate a bit, to give them a new lease of life. In terms of the material, it's what you see on the beaches - abandoned pirogues, cans, there's a whole aesthetic. The first time I decided to work with this type of wood was at the Soumbedioune market, looking at the boxes where the fish were kept for sale. The environment, with the sea salt and the sun, creates magnificent colours. Few painters can achieve this exceptional quality of colour. So I said to myself, maybe you don't need to know how to paint, you just need to compose. And as for the slingshots... I used to play with them when I was little. They were our games. But recently, slingshots have taken on a new importance here too - they've become a weapon. For example, during the recent political demonstrations here in Senegal, protestors used slingshots to fight the police. The guy who sold me these slingshots lives in Thiès and during the demonstrations, the police were looking for him everywhere. And, of course, it also reminds us of what's happening in Palestine. Palestinian intifadas still use slingshots to defend themselves. And that creates images... I still believe in the power of images, in their effectiveness.

Aude Tournaye: It's the same struggle that we see around the world, with the coastline and access to water, which is once again linked to exports, imports and to those in power.

Hamedine Kane: It's a subtle reference to the problem of fishing. It's also a warning, because Senegal is known for its sometimes violent political changes... And despite everything, the population is quite vigilant. I wanted to put out a slingshot to tell the new authorities that they must not rest on their laurels. If they don't do the right thing, the slingshots will come out of the woodwork. And it's funny because it's not really an object that was easy to find here in the first place.

Aude Tournaye: How did you find this object?

Hamedine Kane: For example, in Fouta, we used to make our own slingshots. Then one day, I was going to Thiès and on the roundabout there were two people selling slingshots, like they would sell bananas. I went to see them and I said to myself, if I want a lot of slingshots, is it possible? “It's complicated," they replied. I went back to see them several times and managed to accumulate a large quantity. Every time I see a slingshot, I think of someone trying to defend themselves, it's a protective tool - it's a bit scary when there are a lot of them all at once.

Aude Tournaye: I think the beauty of what you're saying, and Younes, you know this too, having worked in the Congo, is that they appear in the street market when there are moments of tension. So it kind of indicates that there's something wrong.

Younes Baba-Ali: What's surprising is that this may well be the first time we've seen this in Senegal, in the sense that it's a very pacifist country, and to have this type of object on the market means that we've turned around a corner, and I find that quite powerful, as if we were starting to distribute weapons to the population.

Aude Tournaye: Younes, I'd like to ask you one last question because I know that your project is going to continue, can you tell us about it? All this work is done in collaboration with pigeon fanciers from the Fédération des Colombophiles de Dakar. How important is this collaboration to them, beyond the artistic world?

Younes Baba-Ali: The LOFT - DKR project would never have happened if there weren't people involved in the world of pigeon racing. It was the meeting with Oumar Johnson that got me started on the research, the former president of the Fédération des Colombophiles au Sénégal, with whom I've been in contact since 2018 and who introduced me to his world. Then, during a meeting with Jennifer, I spoke spontaneously about the project and felt the need to do something about it. And it's true that this project brings together two worlds, that of culture and art and that of pigeon racing. And I think that if you don't open that door, you don't even realise what's going on behind it. In parallel with this exhibition, the Délégation Wallonie-Bruxelles is organising a presentation on pigeon racing, an overview with a whole section on history and the Belgian archives. The intention is that pigeon fanciers will be able to get involved and benefit from the focus via this project. It's a fairly discreet and introverted community, unlike the big wrestlers. They need visibility.