Jantu Guddi (Sun of the night)
by Kenu Lab’Oratoire des Imaginaires
Jantu Guddi (Sun Of The Night) is a large-scale, solar-powered installation that doubles as a hub for artistic programs that explore notions of sustainability in Senegalese tradition and mythology.
Set in Salagne-salagne, the central market of Dakar’s Ouakam neighborhood, the installation consists of a 12-foot sculpture of a tree surrounded by benches and local flora. The installation is a modern imagining of the Senegalese tradition of the palaver tree, a fixture in living spaces across the country where communities gather to learn, tell stories, and organize. KENU’s palaver tree is both a source of protection and light: its large leaves offer passersby a shady place to rest, a solar charging system allows visitors to charge their phones for free, and a solar-powered irrigation system tends to the installation’s living greenery. The space is designed as a place where people who gravitate to the market can rest, recharge, and escape the mad rush that punctuates our daily lives.
Over the course of a weekend, the installation will come alive with a series of theater performances, concerts, and community dialogues and workshops. These programs will take inspiration from traditional organizational systems that center nature-related knowledge to guide contemporary responses to the climate crisis both locally and globally.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kenu – Lab’Oratoire des Imaginaires is an art center that experiments with new ways of working together to produce new forms of collective action, serve the community, and reveal the current potential of imaginaries. Rooted in the arts, culture, and orality, Kenu’s mission is to explore the imaginaries, social practices, and traditional knowledge of the community of Ouakam. Inspired by “research-action” methods, the Lab’Oratoire uses tools belonging as much to the social sciences and popular education as to the artistic world.
