No. 45 (2025): Dossier The Influences in the Arts from Dakar

The purpose of this dossier is the result of the international seminar "Influences in the Arts from Dakar" and aims to bring together researchers and specialists to reflect on the historical vibrancy of the city of Dakar, the creation, and circulation of arts flowing from various African contexts, both internationally and regionally. Dakar stands as a center of contemporary African art and the construction of critical perspectives, as suggested by the Musée des Civilisations Noires, founded in 2018. A prominent cultural city in intellectual and artistic production, it exerts influence as a contemporary seismograph not only on the continent. Initiated by the Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia of the Universidade de São Paulo and the FAPESP Thematic Project Link’ArtÁfricas - From the Heart of Wars to the Aesthetics of Plasticity: Creation and Engagement in Artistic Thought in African Contexts from the 1980s to the Present Day, the dossier questions the different layers of the colonial experience, in order to also define perspectives that move from Dakar in the realm of cultural expressions. Thus, reflecting on the relationships established from Dakar with artists and institutions in Brazil and France will allow for a consideration of intercontinental dynamics in both the past and present. Can these non-Eurocentric contemporary insurgencies demand an epistemic transformation in the arts and anthropology in Brazil as well? The goal will be to identify and discuss the interconnections established through cultural events, the formation of collections, and exhibitions, in order to observe to what extent the arts, museums, and movements in such locations have mutually constituted each other, traversed by power hierarchies, negotiations, and collaborations.

Cover by Fernanda Coutinho, detail of the work by Hamedine Kane (collaboration with Boris Raux), Les Ressources: Acte-#2. Le Ventre de l’Atlantique, 36th São Paulo Biennial, 2025, courtesy of the artist and Galeria Selebe Yoon. Photograph by Denise Dias Barros.