Who Needs Canvas? In Dakar, Street Artists Express Their Visions on Sides of Homes

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Anemona Hartocollis

Artists from not just Senegal but Burkina Faso, Algeria, Morocco, Congo, France and Italy have come to paint on these walls. agazie Emezi for New York Times

DAKAR, Senegal — On one wall, the painting of a marabout, a Muslim holy man, peers out from behind a line hung with laundry. Nearby, a poster of an African woman in a bustle has been pasted to a house. Still further along, women socialize in front of a wall covered in an intricate black-and-white abstract pattern. These are the painted houses of the Médina, a poor and working-class neighborhood near downtown Dakar. The neighborhood has welcomed street artists from all over the world to practice their craft in what the founder of the project calls the open sky museum. Dozens of wall paintings dot the neighborhood, bringing color to usually drab cement walls, and adding to the flourishing international art scene in Dakar. [More]