Grounds of Memory: Self-Portraits in Senegal

October 9, 2025 – December 12, 2025

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Grounds of Memory is a self-portrait project made in Senegal in 2025 while in residency at Diasporic Soul, an organization based in Sébikotane. After twenty-five years of engagement with Senegal — having spent part of my coming of age here — turning the camera on myself felt like a natural extension of that relationship: the right kind of vulnerability, a practice of seeing and being seen. From that stance, the series sees architecture and landscape as living archives. Working in Coppe (home of Omar ibn Said), Saint‑Louis/Ndar, Cap Skirring and nearby Kabrousse, Dakar's Plateau and Medina, and Richard‑Toll at the site of the Folly, I place myself, always donning a red grand boubou, in relation to courtyards, shorelines, and thresholds to ask what these sites remember. Using natural light, I stage quiet, site‑responsive images that echo gestures of witnessing. The photographs weave personal presence with local histories of migration, faith, and encounter, tracing how structures become repositories of memory. This iteration at Shine Portrait Studio presents nine works, including a quiet homage to Mama Casset in Dakar’s Medina and a montage recalling Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl, staged at Place de l’Indépendance in Dakar.

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