Abidjan is at the heart of the “Nid d’artistes” collaborative book collection.

Published on: 04/30/2024 – 12:23an average : 04/30/2024 – 12:29

3 minutes

With our correspondent in Abidjan. Marine Janine

Several artists were invited to give an overview of their contribution to the work… and in particular representatives of one of Abidjan’s main specialties: knockouts.

Moroccan publisher Malika Slaoui, who runs the “Nid d’artistes” group, says that she naturally chose Abidjan for her third artistic work: “ The first born was Casablanca, followed by Dakar, which took place during the Covid-19 pandemic, so it was difficult to collect the scene, everything was done via the Internet, and finally via Zoom… Today, celebrating Abidjan means celebrating a wonderful cultural scene but perhaps not He has the opportunity to meet in all specialties. This book made it possible to combine all this cultural diversity and all this cultural richness. »

What brings these 87 artists together is first and foremost the very strong bond that links them to their chosen city, but also the strength of their individual talents which are a source of pride for Abidjan, explains author Celestin Kofi Yao, whose texts serve as a common text. The theme throughout the work: “ If Abidjan is this popular, it is because there are men and women who make this city. It was necessary to pause for a moment, to list them, not with an exhaustive aim, but with a desire to highlight a few, if only those, and present them to the face of the world, for this book has a call to travel. A few painters, a few musicians, a few poets, a few writers, a few filmmakers… We wanted to touch on almost everything related to the ecosystem of Abidjan artists. »

The selected texts interact with Ricky Laverne Martin’s images to form the image of the woman nicknamed “Papi La Joy.”

Specifically to the writer Veronique Tajo Who submitted the work, What makes Abidjan unique is the liveliness and joy of life of its people, their resilience and creativity. ” What I liked about this project was taking a snapshot of the city and then seeing, “So, what is Abidjan in 2024?” But preserving the memory of all it has known, the suffering, the joys, the hopes… and then its inhabitants who constantly create it, the generations that follow, always with this flexibility, this desire to continue, to move forward, to progress. They have very, very great creativity! We know Ivorian humor very well… and for example Noche, this language that moves a lot… and creativity as well. We see it everywhere on the street, we don’t necessarily need to go to a gallery, we see it on the street. I think it’s a really African city, which in its appearance as a modern city, I’ve seen so little, is basically an African city to me, when you travel through it, when you get to know it. We are fed by all these tales, all this orality, which still exists, moreover, in an enormous way. »