Visual Tactics of Contemporary Senegal

ALLEN F. ROBERTS AND MARY NOOTER ROBERTS Visual Tactics of Contemporary Senegal VENUE FELIX EBOUE is a major artery that skirts industrial parks dus A tered dose to the great harbour of Dakar, Senegal. I Because of heavy vehicular and human traffic, it can take an automobile more than an hour to navigate the avenue's several kilometres. All along the way, cranes, machinery, and towering chimneys rise above factory walls topped by razor wire and iron spikes. Just across from a crowded roundabout, an unexpected wall mural portrays a man robed in white, praying on ocean waters. The avenue proceeds north eastward towards a large military base on the Point of Bel-Air, and soon astreet branches to the right between a lumberyard and a fish-processing plant. Here portraits and complex painted scenes unfurl along more than two hundred metres of cement-block wall. The same figure robed in white appears in this mural (Figure 35). He is Amadou Bamba, a Senegalese Sufi saint (WaU Allah, or 'Friend of God') who lived from 1853 till 1927 and around whose teachings the Mouride Way has been created? A I Avenue Felix Eboue was given its name toward the end ofthe colonial period. Eboue (1884- 1944) was born in French Guiana of African heritage. He served in a number of important French colonial posts, and as administrator of Chad, he was the first colonial governor to join the Free French forces. For his heroism, Eboue was named governor of French Equatorial Africa, and his remains are enshrined in the Pantheon. 2 Senegalese Sufi concepts of sainthood are related to those of Morocco as presented in Vin cent Cornell, Realm of the Saint (Austin: U of Texas P, 1998). Papisto's work is discussed and illustrated in the following by the present authors: "Visual Literature in Urban Senegal," Public Culture 12.1 (2000): 285-88; "Artist Portfolio: Papisto Boy," African Arts 33.2 (2000): 72-79, 92: www.jfnch.ucla.edulpassporttoparadise.htm; and "Music and 'Ontological Memory' Among Sene © Airican Cultures, Visual Arts, and the Museum: Sights / Sites oi Creativity and ConDict, ed. Tobias Dörinz (Matatu 25-26; Amsterdam & New York: Editions Rodopi, 2002). 192 ALLEN F. ROBERTS & MARY NOOTER ROBERTS ~ montage depicts Bamba's sons and pious followers presiding over African heroes of resistance to oppression. Some are from earlier times (Lat Dior, Almami Samory), some from struggles for African independence (Leopold Sedar Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah), and others from more recent history (Che Guevara, Thomas Sankara, Nelson Mandela). Global dignitaries range from Jimmy Carter to Yassir Arafat. Pope John PaullI and Jesus find places on the wall, as do Pasteur and Pythagoras, Malcolm and Martin. The vocalists Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Baba Maal, Cheikh Lö, Fatou Guewel and Coumba Gawlo are given prominence as "messengers" of dignity. The Archangel Gabriel (in the form of a dove) is shown bringing God' s in spirational words and blessings to many of these celebrated individuals. Some sub jects are featured in narrative vignettes (Figure 36). Analogies between others are suggested by repeated motifs and shared details. Surreal visions and snippets of poetry swirl among the portraits, sometimes offering didactic commentary on the tribulations of contemporary Africa, sometimes conveying millenarian angst. What sort ofmuseum - or, rather, 'museum' - is this? Senegal possesses a num ber of museums that were created during the colonial period for colonial purposes and colonial audiences. Senegalese were unwelcome in such institutions that spoke about rather than to them; and even now, more than forty years after Independence, few Senegalese visit their nation's museums. Indeed, museums created more recent ly, such as those of Goree Island that present aspects of the transatlantic slave trade or Senegalese women's history, mostly cater to non-Senegalese audiences. But al though they may ignore established museums, people in Senegal do manifest active interest in their histories, arts, and cultures, especially as they refabulate their cities - that is, as they reconceive the very nature of urban space, endowing pi aces with the names, memories, and spirits of their own heroes to reflect post colonial goals and concems. galese Sufis," in Music, Religion, and Ritual in Africa, ed. Daniel Avorgbedor (London: Edwin Meilen, forthcoming). Papisto's paintings have been exhibited in Germany; see Friedrich Axt & Moussa Sy, Anthology 0/ Contemporary Fine Arts in Senegal (Frankfurt am Main: Museum für Völkerkunde, 1989), and Hubert Fichte & Leonore Mau, Die Wanderbilder des Papisto Boy (Frankfurt am Main: Qumram, 1980). On the image of Amadou Bamba and a bibliography about Mouride visuality, culture and history, see Allen Roberts, "The Ironies of System D," in Recycled, Re-Seen: Folk Artfrom the Global Scrap Heap, ed. Charlene Cemy & Susanne Seriff (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996): 82-10 1; and Allen Roberts & Mary Roberts, "L' Aura d' Amadou Bamba: Photographie et fabulation dans le Senegal urbain," Societes et Cultures 22.1 (1998): 15-40, "Displaying Secrets: Visual Piety in Senegal," in Visuality Be/ore and Beyond the Renaissance, ed: Robert Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000), and "'Paintings Like Prayers': The Hid den Side of Senegalese Reverse-Glass 'Image/Texts,;" Research in African Literatures 31.4 (2000): 76-96. .

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