Chronicle of a Revolt

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 incumbent government lasting 13 months, which have now led to the democratic election of a new president. 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.

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