KADIST, the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), and the Institut français du Sénégal are happy to present PALIMPSEST OF AFRICAN CITIES : DIG WHERE YOU STAND

A group exhibition presented as part of the 2026 Dakar Biennale OFF programme and Partcours.

Presented as part of the OFF Programme of the 2026 Dakar Biennale and Partcours, Palimpsest of African Cities is the latest edition of the DIG WHERE YOU STAND programme initiated by the African Artists’ Foundation and taking place in several venues in Dakar, Senegal, from the 20th of November 2026 to the 28th of February 2027.

This group exhibition brings together artists, architects, photographers, filmmakers, and researchers to explore the forces, narratives, and everyday dynamics that shape contemporary African cities.

Conceived in partnership with KADIST, the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), and the Institut français du Sénégal, the exhibition approaches the city as a space in constant rewriting, where memories, everyday uses, architectures, mobilities, and imaginaries overlap and interact. In dialogue with the Biennale’s theme, “(Anti)Fragility,” it explores the forms of resilience, adaptation, and solidarity that emerge within urban environments.

Rather than presenting the African city as a fixed or unified entity, the exhibition examines its fluid and evolving forms, revealing the ongoing negotiation between institutional models of urban planning and the informal infrastructures shaped by residents’ everyday needs, practices, and aspirations.

The exhibition examines African urban environments through their fluid and evolving forms of adaptation and collective resilience, revealing the constant negotiation between institutional visions of the planned city and the informal urban realities shaped by residents’ everyday practices, needs, and aspirations.

Presented across Galerie Le Manège, Centre Yennenga, and a series of off-site projects throughout Dakar, the exhibition invites audiences to experience the city as much as the artworks themselves. Photography, painting, film, installation, archival materials, and research-based practices unfold across multiple sites, encouraging visitors to reconsider contemporary urban realities while fostering new forms of spatial awareness and engagement.

Bringing together perspectives from different regions of Africa and its diasporas, Palimpsest of African Cities reflects on the ways people shape, inhabit, and continually reinvent their environments. It positions the city as a space of memory, negotiation, and projection—one that remains open to multiple possible futures.

The exhibition also includes a significant programme of new commissions and artistic production. New works are being developed in Dakar through artists’ residencies by Ashenafe Mestika (Ethiopia), Modou Dieng Yacine (Senegal), and Keren Lasme (Côte d’Ivoire). It also features several newly commissioned works, including a major work by Bacary Dieme, a leading figure of the Dakar School and the senior artist in the exhibition. Together, these commissions and residencies affirm the exhibition’s commitment to supporting artistic production while fostering dialogue between historical legacies and contemporary practices.