Nov 22–Dec 6, 2012
Chronicle of a Revolt
Photographs of a Season of Protest | Discourses on the “Senegalese Spring”
Senegal in January 2011: while the Arab World was in upheaval, a group of artists and journalists decry the erosion of democracy with the cry “Y'en a marre! (Enough is Enough!)”.
What followed were an unprecedented series of protest actions against the third candidature of the president in the elections, which were lasting for 13 months. At the end of this season of protest, after the first round of elections in February 2012, the curator Koyo Kouoh and her fellow campaigners in the RAW Material Company compiled the various images of events – not just for the sake of documentation but also with a view to raising questions – questions about how to localize the protests in Pan-African terms, about the forms of political and social dynamics in the “Senegalese Spring”, about the pictorial language of a revolution.
At the opening of the exhibition, Achille Mbembe, Boris Diop, Gilbert Achcar and others place the events in Senegal in the context of African protest culture and revolutionary powers. A concert with Didier Awadi, one of the central figures of the Senegalese HipHop scene and at the same time a leading activist of the protest movement, rounds off the program.
With photographs by: Aliou Mbaye, Amadou Mbaye, Antoine Tempé, Cheikh Ahmed Tidjane Ndiaye, Cristof Echard, Elise Fitte-Duval, Erick Christian Ahounou, Elias Aba Milki, Gabriela Barnuevo, Jaques Daniel Ly, Jean-Baptiste Joire, Mamadou Gomis, Rebecca Blackwell, Rose Skelton, Sidy Mohamed Kandji, Sidy Yansane, Sylvain Cherkaoui, Tamsir Ndir, Toure Béhan
Curated by Koyo Kouoh