PARIS
JUNE 27 - AUGUST 5, 2023
From June 28 to August 5, 2023, Fondation H presents A vendre, a solo exhibition by artist Adji Dieye, which is part of her reflection on Dakar’s constantly evolving public space. She ironically displays the “For sale” sign, leaving one to wonder whether it applies to urban plots for construction or to her own self.
Adji Dieye makes photography malleable, in part thanks to her textile print work. In this exhibition, she continues her experiments with the photographic medium by producing twenty cyanotypes, reminiscent of both indigo dyes and the color of ageing archives. Ten of them are architectural photographs taken in the city of Dakar. The other ten are self-portraits embodying great figures of modern Western architecture and authors of many buildings erected in West African capitals.
Artist-researcher Adji Dieye searches the National Archives of Senegal to trace the contradictory policies pursued by Léopold Sédar Senghor and his successors. By mixing her personal and family photographs with the State archives, she challenges the linearity of the official narrative by confronting it with the realities of personal experience. Her work also highlights the similarities between two crucial periods: the post-independence years and the current situation of the country. In apreviously unseen video, the artist is buried in sand as if to cover an embarrassing moment in history that we hastily bury to get over it.
Adji Dieye opens up essential conversations about post-colonial urban spaces and the individual perspectives that emerge within them.
Accompanied by Cindy Cissokho in her project’s writing at Fondation H.
ADJI DIEYE'S BIOGRAPHY
Adji Dieye, born in 1991, is a Senegalese and Italian artist. Adji Dieye lives and works between Dakar in Senegal, Milan in Italy and Zurich in Switzerland. Adji Dieye holds a bachelor’s degree in New Art Technologies from the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Brera in Milan, Italy, and an MFA from the Université des Arts de Zurich, ZHDK, in Zurich, Switzerland. Adji Dieye’s work was shown several times, notably at international exhibitions such as the 14th edition of the Dakar Biennale (2022), the 12th edition of the African Photography Encounters (Bamako, 2019); the exhibition Of bread, wine, cars, security and peace at Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna, 2019); at Clark House Initiative(Mumbai, 2019); or at the Lagos Photo Festival (Lagos, 2018).