SÉNÉGAL, Voyage Temporel
This exhibition was featured at :
OFF Paris Photo (8 Nov – 15 Nov 2024)
OFF Biennale Dakar (18 May – 28 July 2024)
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Casamance, Fatick, Dakar, Kédougou, Fouta and many other places.
For four consecutive years, Senegalese photographer Malick Bodian travelled the length and breadth of his native country, driven by an instinctive curiosity.
It all began in Casamance. It was during a visit to his father that Bodian met his grandmother for the first time, and at the same time attended the Diola initiates’ training ceremony. It was this meeting of destinies that was to be the starting point for an adventure that was both introspective and artistic. Bodian began a new chapter in his personal and professional history, using documentary photography to bear witness to his encounters. His work comes from within. It’s not just a purely aesthetic look, but a conscious effort to connect with his culture and his land.
Inspired by analogue colour photography, he nevertheless mechanically keeps a second camera to capture the same shot in black and white. It was only later, when editing his photographs, that something obvious became clear to him. His images express an unintended but undeniable timelessness. More than a simple testimony, his shots reflect the beauty of ancestral ways of life, celebrating the intimate Senegalese sphere, preserved from the modern world and its uniformity.
It is these black and white images that the photographer has chosen to highlight for his very first exhibition on the African continent. An invitation initially dedicated to the Senegalese people, offering them a visual journey through their country, like a celebration of collective memory, a link between past and present.
Through ‘Sénégal, voyage temporel’, photographer Malick Bodian invites us to escape while reflecting on the beauty and uniqueness of Senegalese traditions.
Sarah Mahini
Works
