YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL THE WAY YOU ARE
Oct 22 – Dec 31, 2020
An initiative by Modou Dieng in collaboration with Djibril Drame in Dakar, Senegal
Produced by blackpuffin with local technical support provided by DM MEDIA
www.YouAreBeautifulTheWayYouAre.net
You Are Beautiful The Way You Are was born from a desire to share new Black contemporary art with the local communities of Dakar, Senegal amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. To bring Dakar, in an act of solidarity, the global voices of an emerging Black renaissance. The 21st century has seen a rise of influential Black thinkers who are questioning what it means to be Black today and what a Black future will look like. You Are Beautiful The Way You Are takes this conversation and brings it to the walls of Dakar, giving the people who walk its streets a voice to take part.
The exhibition features a series of large scale printed reproductions of artworks which will be wheat pasted onto outdoor walls throughout Médina and downtown Dakar. The succession of these works, created exclusively by artists living in Africa and those in the African diaspora, serves to construct a visual conversation between the artists individual experiences and perspectives as a Black person in our modern world.
Dakar, Senegal has long stood as a figurehead for Black culture in Africa, home to the first World Festival of Black Arts and the continued host of the Dak’Art African Art Biennale. Inspired by this history and the philosophies of Léopold Senghor, You Are Beautiful The Way You Are hopes to continue in this tradition. Staged in a highly populated metropolis, the exhibition will encourage an immediate engagement between the participating artists and the surrounding community, opening a public dialogue on the concept of a “Négritude Contemporaine”. Through this unrestricted accessibility, You Are Beautiful The Way You Are will give the citizens of Dakar an opportunity to discover a new group of important Black artists and provide a moment to converse and converge on Black Beauty today and tomorrow.
A custom painted bus led by DM Media took viewers on a tour through the streets of Dakar to the various locations where the works were installed.
Artist List
Alun Be (Dakar, Senegal)
Janice Bond (Houston, United States)
Jordan Casteel (New York City, United States)
Lloyd Corporation (London, England)
Joël Degbo (Paris, France)
Modou Dieng (Chicago, United States)
Ndoye Douts (Dakar, Senegal)
Djibril Drame (Dakar, Senegal)
Hassan Hajjaj (Marrakech, Morocco & London, England)
Chase Hall (New York City, United States)
Joiri Minaya (New York City, United States)
Sadikou Oukpedjo (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire)
Ebony G. Patterson (Chicago, United States & Kingston, Jamaica)
Patrick Quarm (Takoradi, Ghana)
Antoine Tempé (Dakar, Senegal)
Hank Willis Thomas (New York City, United States)
Adrian Octavius Walker (Chicago, United States)