Saliou Diop (SN, 1974)
Period of residency: January-March 2024
Used to the fauna of the Niokolo-Koba National Park, Salou Diop took advantage of his residency to discover and observe the fauna of the Canton of Vaud in order to understand how new animal forms can influence his artistic work. Using the notion of “waste” in Switzerland as a source of creative material, he recovered new materials and surfaces to develop hybrid sculptures combining the forms of living beings in Senegal and Switzerland.
Born in 1974 in Tambacounda, Senegal, where he currently lives and works, Saliou Diop is a visual artist who creates installations, sculptures, and furniture mainly from found objects and salvaged materials. Visually impaired after an accident at work in 1996, Diop has been designing constructions ever since, often in the form of animals that are closely linked to Senegalese culture.
A graduate of the National School of Arts in Dakar, Diop founded the Bankuba Art workshop in Tambacounda in 2014, which offers residencies, introductions to the visual arts and traditional music lessons to children in the largest city in eastern Senegal. Diop has taken part in numerous collective projects and group exhibitions in Senegal and Europe, including at the Théodore-Monod African Art Museum in Dakar (formerly IFAN Museum), the Thread Centre in Sinthian, the AKAA – Art & Design fair in Paris, and the OVNI Festival in Nice.
Saliou Diop, La Becque, 2024, photo Aurélien Haslebacher