Ken Aicha Sy – founder Wakh’Art and Idea Box
Ken Aicha Sy was born in Dakar, from a Franco-Martinican mother, journalist and a Senegalese plastic artist father, she grew up in the Senegalese capital before going to study in Paris in Design and Art History ... It was during the period of the World Festival of Negro Arts that Ken Aicha returned to Senegal. Sensitive to the creative environment and the cause of Senegalese artists, she sets up a cultural platform called Wakh'Art to participate in the promotion of Senegalese cultural industries. Sometimes producer, sometimes curator, Ken Aicha Sy is a woman active in culture. Through her space the Idea Box, now installed on the small coast, she fights to follow her motto: she works to make art a factor of development and emancipation.
Ishola Akpo – photographer, programme mentor
Ishola Akpo (b. 1983) is a photographer and multimedia artist in Benin. The artist experiments with the possibilities of digital mediums, while mixing modernities and traditions in his work, playing on different levels of reading to make plural metaphors. The border between reality and fiction, fixed identities and multiple identities, remains at the heart of his approach. In 2013, he won the Visa pour la Creation (French Institute, Paris), where he presented the series Pas de flash sil vous plait! – A reflection on the interaction of light on photographed subjects, presented in the form of a performance and exhibition at the Institut Francais de Cotonou.
In 2014, he published the series L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux (Africa Is NoIsland, MACAAL, Fair 1.54 in Morocco, 2018), based on a family experience, which illustrates his grandmother's dowry, while insisting on its memory load.
This reflection will lead him to explore contemporary marriage. In 2015, with the series Les maris de notre poque, Ishola Akpo, won the Photoquai, entering the collection of the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris.
Since then he has multiples artistic residencies: Montresso Foundation (Morocco) with the Dabi series and more recently the Zinsou Foundation (Benin) with 'AGBARA Women' presented at the Ouidah Museum as an ode to the power of women, embodied with portraits of known and forgotten queens from African history. His work has been presented in several major international events including: The Museum of the History of Immigration, (Palais de la Porte Dore, Africa 2020 - Paris), Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt (Germany), Fotonoviembre, Tenerife (Spain), Nuit Blanche de Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Lagosphotos Festival (Nigeria), Festival Afreaka (Brazil).
Julie Banâtre and Léa Perier Loko – founders and directors SEPTIEME Gallery
SEPTIEME transmits a cosmopolitan vision, by questioning affiliations and exploring the subtlety of the world. The gallery hopes to disturb perceptions and work with commitment, to make its activity a manifesto of the in-between.
Founded in 2019 in Paris in the 7th arrondissement, the gallery quickly took on significant growth where it imposed its place as a young, dynamic and cosmopolitan gallery. The gallery works in favor of an international influence and a deep integration into the world art market, by participating in fairs in cities as eclectic as they are pillars of the art world (Beirut, Cape Town, London, Lagos, New York, Miami).
Based in Paris in a Haussmann-style setting, SEPTIEME wanted to open a second space in September 2022 in Cotonou, Benin, in a 200m2 warehouse in the center of the city in order to offer exhibitions in a new format to meet people. of the public in the West African sub-region. It made sense for SEPTIEME to deploy its vision spatially and participate in pushing back the frontiers of contemporary art as well as contributing to the construction of new strongholds of contemporary art, the city of Cotonou being in full cultural and artistic for several years.
Illa G. Donwahi – president and artistic director Donwahi Foundation
Born in Abidjan, Illa G. Donwahi, an economist by training, grew up in Ivory Coast, before continuing her studies in France and the United States.
Collector, independent curator, I. G. Donwahi created in 2008 in Abidjan the Charles Donwahi Foundation for contemporary art, with the general objectives to participate in the socialization of art, and to remedy the ignorance from which the whole of African artistic production internationally, but also within the borders of the continent.
Visual arts, living arts, through its exhibition programs, its workshops, artist residencies, external collaborations, the Donwahi Foundation dedicates its spaces to contemporary creation in all its plurality, and thus brings support, accompaniment, visibility to creators and animators of the cultural scene. An incubator, a place of exchange and sharing open to artists from all walks of life, and to the public, the donwahi foundation also aims to be a place of convergence and transmission of our identities, a bridge between our past, our present and our future.
Illa g. Donwahi has also participated as a curator or speaker at various editions of the Dakar Biennale, at art fairs paris art fair, 1:54 london, akaa. External collaborations include major projects such as the moleskine foundation's atwork program, the one carried out with the sindika dokolo foundation, and with the "clavé archives" at the 2022 venice biennale, as well as future partnerships with, in particular, the nubuke foundation , and the secular solidarity association. Keynote speaker at the opening of the 2018 cape town fair, member of the catchlight 2020 visual leadership fellowship jury, portfolios reviewer at addis foto fest, panelist at canex weekend 2022.
