BINTA DIAW
XIX Giornata del Contemporaneo
CONTEMPORALIS meets the Italian-Senegalese artist Binta Diaw, whose work seeks to deconstruct the processes that have led to the instrumentalisation of bodies throughout history, thereby challenging the integrity of Eurocentric narratives. In 2022 she became the first winner of the Franco-Italian Pujade-Lauraine Prize.
Binta Diaw’s work stems from extensive research “which takes the Black female body as its starting point in relation to the traces of colonialism present in contemporary society.” It is directly inspired by a popular proverb in the Wolof language from Senegalese tradition: Nit nitay garabam [A human being is the cure for another human being]. The word garab carries a double meaning: plant and medicine/healing.
“Through the poetic imagery of this proverb translated into visual form, the artist emphasises the inseparable bond linking human beings and Nature, and the need to care for everything that surrounds us, as it is an integral part of ourselves and our lives.”
During her residency at Art Explora in Paris, Binta Diaw will be invited by CONTEMPORALIS to speak about her work and her current artistic research.
Binta Diaw is a Senegalese-Italian artist born in 1995 in Milan, Italy. She currently lives and works in Milan. She graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and the École d’Art et de Design de Grenoble in France. In 2022 she became the first recipient of the Franco-Italian Pujade-Lauraine Prize.
Recent exhibitions include: Chorus of Soil, Liverpool Biennial (UK, 2023); Infiltrées – 5 manières d’habiter le monde, Reiffers Initiatives, Paris (2023); Maa ka Maaya ka ca a yere kono – Sur la multiplicité, la différence, le devenir et l’héritage, Bamako Biennial (Mali, 2022); Bellezza e Terrore: luoghi di colonialismi e fascismi, Museo Madre, Naples (2022); The Land of Our Birth is a Woman, Centrale Fies, Dro (2022); Toolu Xeer, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Dakar (2022); Les tirés ailleurs, Bungalow ChertLüdde, Berlin (2022); Segni di Me, Casa Testori, Milan (2022); The Recovery Plan, Italian Cultural Institute, Paris; A Living Experience of Feeling Listened, Lungomare, Bolzano (2021); Nero Sangue, Museo MA*GA, Gallarate (2020); Soil is an Inscribed Body, Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (2019).
