In September of 2002, a Senegalese passenger ferry called the Joola was tragically shipwrecked off the coast of the Gambia, resulting in the death of more than 1,800 passengers. Nearly two years later, the 2004 installment of Dak’Art – Senegal’s contemporary art biennial – included numerous artistic responses to the capsized ferry and its lost passengers. The late artist Ndary Lô (1961–2017) used his signature method of artistic récupération—crafting sculpture and assemblage installations out of repurposed materials from the local environment—to create Délit de surcharge (2004). The prevalence of récupération, as both an artistic strategy and a conceptualization, has characterized the work of many contemporary Senegalese artists since the 1990s. Its processes of recovery, reclamation, and recycling have undeniable ties to Dakar’s rehabilitation movement of the late 1980s and early ‘90s, during which professional and amateur artists took to the streets to rescue the city from the destruction of a waste management crisis. This presentation considers Lô’s work alongside the perspectives and theories of new materialism, ecology, and international economics, and aims to illuminate the deepening connection between contemporary artistic production, sustainability, and the globalized nature of modern commerce. 

“State of Exception?”: Protest, Politics and the Future of Peru

Join the CLACLS for a panel discussion with Baruch Professor Mark Rice, José L. Rénique, Renzo Aroni, and Myriam Nacimento about the current political crisis in Peru.

This event is free and open to the public.