ellipse prize

The ellipse Prize 2021 highlighted the emerging artistic scene of Senegal. Opened to African visual artists living in the country and aged between 18 to 35, this first edition showed the creativity and the dynamism of the area. The five finalists emphasize the diversity of this vibrant scene.

The theme was “Futurology” with the aim of questioning the world today by mixing artistic thought with other fields related to lifestyles and societies evolution.

The jury of 2021 was made of six international professionals such as senegalese scene specialists:

• Wagane Gueye – exhibition curator, cultural mediator and director of the I.A.C.
• Victoria Mann – founding director of the AKAA fair
• Malick Ndiaye – curator, researcher, teacher and artistic director of the 2022 Dakar biennale
• Bénédicte Alliot – director of the Cité internationale des arts in Paris
• Delphine Lopez – director of the Cécile Fakhoury gallery in Dakar
• Ken Aïsha Sy – founding director of the cultural platform Wakh’Art

Ibrahima Ndome is the winner of this first edition. He is a member of the Atelier Ndokette collective with Souleymane Bachir Diaw and Safi Niang.

These artists came together after their first project together around the “Ndokette” (tunic). It represents for them a gateway to a world where memories (past) and aspirations (future) are projected into objects (present). The collective uses a transdisciplinary approach between photography, textile, and installation. This mix of practices is oriented around the search for a temporality that is no longer composed of these three phases but of only one: the future, which is an integral part of the present as well as the past.

Thanks to the ellipse Prize program, the collective have benefited from a 3 month residency and an exhibition at the international art fair AKAA – Also Known As Africa at the Carreau du Temple in Paris. The artistic residency at the Cité internationale des arts allowed them to go deeper their research and to experiment new practices.

The exhibition in November 2021 on the non-profit booth of ellipse art projects at the AKAA fair presented a selection of photographs from the “Ndokette Session” series as well as an audiovisual and textile installation produced during the first weeks of the residency.

A second event that gathered all their works composed of textile and cyanotype photographs, were exhibited at the Cité internationale des arts at the end of the program. This was the consecration of their research about time and matter for the collective.

_Back in pictures on the success of this first edition

© Théo Pitout / Observascope agency