Alioune Thiam (SN, 1993)
Residency period: October-December 2025
Interactive Memories – Olympic Echoes investigates Africa’s little-known or forgotten Olympic legacy. During my residency, I gained access to the archives of the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, where my research led to a key discovery that shaped the project: the first African Games in 1965, held in Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo). Their origins can be traced back to 1923, when Pierre de Coubertin, then President of the International Olympic Committee, expressed the wish for African Games to take place in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1927 and to be repeated every two years.
While exploring the museum’s archives, I found very limited material, mainly letters and correspondence, competition results, and meeting reports from the organizing committee. From this gathered information, I decided to create objects that reconnect us with the history of these first African Games.
Using video mapping, animation, 3D modeling, and 3D printing, I developed an immersive installation with interactive features based on capacitive sensing (electronic sensors combined with conductive paint to create touch-sensitive areas). Deeply inspired by African oral traditions, the project also incorporates the “talking drum,” known as the tama in Senegal, to build the soundscape and invite audiences to experience this history in a unique way. — Alioune Thiam
Based in Dakar, Alioune Thiam is a Senegalese video artist whose work bridges art, technology, and African oral traditions. Through immersive and interactive installations that combine projection mapping, animation, and sound, he explores memory, identity, and storytelling. His practice examines the impact of digital technology on Senegalese and African cultures, merging innovation with cultural memory to create participatory, poetic, and sensorial experiences.
Alioune Thiam’s residency at La Becque is part of the Olympic Heritage | Artists in Residence program, organized by the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum in Doha and the Olympic Museum, located in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Alioune Thiam, La Becque, 2025, photo Aurélien Haslebacher