Visual artist and AMA grantee Massira Touré travelled from Bamako (Mali) to Lagos (Nigeria) to participate in the “Vernacular art lab” residency organized as part of the 2018 edition of the Iwaya! Community Arts Festival (ICAF Lagos – 1-15 December).
A graduate of the Conservatoire des arts et métiers de Bamako, Massira has been working as a professional painter for three years. She is also a committed educator, teaching drawing and painting at the Conservatoire. Her practice centres around traditional Malian cloth. In large-scale paintings, created with natural pigments, Massira seeks to highlight and affirm the varied social meanings of traditional cloth, which she considers to be widely ignored in modern society. She has exhibited her works in group and individual exhibitions in Mali, Tunisia, Benin, the USA and France.
Iwaya Community Art Festival is an annual festival organized in the Lagos suburb of Iwaya. Conceived to question the dominant “white cube” exhibition model, the festival uses the streets of Iwaya and its neighbouring communities as the setting for alternative artistic interventions. Through the “Vernacular Art Lab,” Massira was able to conduct research on Nigerian textiles, interact with local artists and audiences and exhibit her works in a new context.
We are proud to have supported Massira’s trip and wish her much success for her future projects!
