Artists in residence

Yaya Diomandé, born in 1990, lives in Abidjan. After two higher technician’s certificates in Transport Logistics and Finance Accounting and a Master’s degree in Private Law at the Félix Houphouët Boigny University in Cocody, he worked as an interpreter before creating an online newspaper.

Abobo Marley, his first novel, is the first winner of the “Voix d’Arique” prize.

Moussa is a “balancer” on a gbaka in Abidjan, a van that every day makes the connection between the commune of Abobo and the shopping center of Adjamé. Clinging to the door, he criss-crosses the city. But he sees almost nothing of what he sees around him. His dreams are elsewhere. He has been carrying them since his childhood in the Marley neighborhood. Moussa wants to go to Bengue, in Europe. No matter what the price, he wants to leave, and that his success there benefits his family here. He will be a shoe-shine boy, an apprentice mechanic, a cab driver, a soldier in the rebellion, a gang leader, before he can raise enough money and try the adventure. For what kind of life?

Moussa tells us his world with the candor of the child, the revolt of the young man, the assurance and blindness of the man who never gives up. A contagious vital energy, a stunning modern odyssey, the discovery of a magnificent voice that carries the voice of today’s African youth.

Irene Dionisio is an Italian film director, screenwriter and visual artist born in Turin in 1986. She currently works between Turin and Rome.

Irene Dionisio’s work meanders between film and visual arts, including video installations, documentaries and fiction films.

Her works have been displayed in solo and group exhibitions at prestigious venues in Italy and abroad such as IIC, New York; PAC, Milan; PAV and Castello di Rivoli, Turin; OCAT, Shanghai; Palazzo Grassi, Venice; Museu Berardo, Lisbon; MamBo, Bologna; and Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva.

Her films have taken part in numerous international festivals (amongst which the Venice Biennale, the Turin Film Festival, Visions du Réel and Taiwan Film Festival) and have received numerous awards (amongst which the Premio Solinas and the Nastro d’Argento in Italy; Prix Scam in France; the jury prize at Ciné-Vérité in Iran).

Irene Dionisio has also won a grant for the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg Nipkow Programm (2020), an ArtOmy grant, New York (2020), the Premio Bertolucci (2020) and American Dream Fellowship for Artists (2021).

Mbaye Babacar Diouf (born in 1983) graduated from the National School of Arts of Senegal in 2007 and holds a Master 2 degree from the Higher Institute of Arts and Cultures of the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. He is one of the most prominent young Senegalese artists of his generation. After receiving several national prizes, he has won silver medal at the last Francophonie games in Abidjan in 2017. His works have been presented at various international exhibitions and fairs, such as Art Paris Art Fair, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, or the DAK’ART International Biennale of Contemporary African Art. 

His artistic approach is characterized by two aspects.

On the one hand, Mbaye Babacar Diouf talks to us about signs, a writing that he elaborates by drawing inspiration from signs that recall hieroglyphics, Arabic writing or other ancient civilizations. This work based on the notion of “rhythm” refers to the notions of memory, identity, code, mysticism and imprint. He is an artist who always seeks the intimate relationship between graphic signs and the human mind that creates them voluntarily, spontaneously or unconsciously.

On the other hand, Mbaye Babacar Diouf addresses the question of the human condition by questioning the relationship of the individual to others or to his social environment. This work is done in pencil with a simplicity that recalls the first steps in drawing using silhouettes.