Xolu Dakar bi (the heart of Dakar)

Taïba, a small informal settlement in central Dakar, the capital of Senegal, is undergoing an ongoing resettlement process through which its inhabitants have been promised either social housing on the outskirts of the city or financial compensation. It is a relatively small piece of land, initially given to people to live on in the mid-twentieth century by an indigenous Lebu leader during early waves of urbanisation to the capital.

This project arises from long-term ethnographic research in Taïba carried out by Anna Wood, a Research Associate in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. It is a collaborative project with two Dakar-based photographers, Djibril Dramé and Ekaterina Golovko, aimed at contributing to the preservation of the memory of the place which will soon be demolished. The exhibition will display a selection of images and works produced between December 2024-February 2025.

Images taken by Dramé and imposed on a screen print will portray people living in Taïba. There is an ambivalence about the move among inhabitants. On the one hand, people lay claim to the place where they were born, grew up and continue to live with their families and conduct their livelihoods. At the same time, with the recent promise of social housing many are impatient to move, a sentiment accompanied by a sense that a place like Taïba no longer has its place in the heart of Dakar (xolu Dakar bi). Images of Taïba and its surrounding area taken by Golovko will portray urban change underway in this part of the city. The exhibition and broader project document the rapid urban transformation underway in this West African city at the same time as speaking to broader, global processes of urban displacement and change.

Short artists bios:

Djibril Dramé is a Senegalese visual artist and curator with over fifteen years’ experience in photography whose work seeks to shed light on socially relevant issues offering an alternative African narrative. As an independent researcher, he has worked on the documentation of graffiti for twenty years.

Ekaterina Golovko is a researcher, writer and photographer interested in contemporary African cities and heritage who has long term experience documenting urban change in Dakar.