Art can be difficult to understand, but those who understand it know that art is a powerful tool. One project that is utilizing the power of art for social change and activism is Portes et Passages du Retour Center for Art and Holistic Development in Senegal. Portes et Passages du Retour is an association for art and artists whose aim is to help the local people become self-sufficient by developing their creativity. The association achieves this through a variety of projects and workshops held at the art center and in the nearby town of Joal-Fadiouth.
Portes et Passages du Retour has a holistic approach and the association also promotes and teaches sustainable living, agriculture and architecture, including earth building. During my stay at the art center I contributed to this part of the work by designing and building a clay oven for the center.
Center for Art and Holistic Development
Portes et Passages du Retour was founded by a Senegalese-American artist couple on a plot of land north of Joal-Fadiouth, in the region of region of Nguéniène on the coast of Senegal. Here the association was given a warehouse that has been transformed into a gallery and workshop space. This warehouse has been the main center of activities, but the association is also expanding with new buildings.
Portes et Passages du Retour works with different kinds of people and hosts a variety of workshops and programs that aim to develop local talents. One of their partners is a women’s pottery group from Nguéniène who have been involved in several projects with the art center. These projects challenge the women to get out of their comfort zone and to develop their creativity by using their skills for something they are not used to, such as painting murals.
The art center also has an artist residency program for local and international artists who wish to stay at the center to further their creative development. These artists are also encouraged to engage with the locals by producing art or giving workshops that can have a positive impact on the communities. Visiting artists are especially encouraged to work with the local youths in order to pass on creative thinking to the next generation.
Jën Rekk, artistic action against overfishing
During my visit in late 2018, Portes et Passages du Retour was in the middle of a project named Jën Rekk, or All About Fish. The aim of the project was to raise awareness about overfishing through artistic action. Fishing has always been an important part of the local economy in Senegal and Joal has the 2nd largest fishing port in the country. Traditional fisherman have only a small impact on the fish stock, but illegal overfishing by Western and Asian companies has depleted the fish stock in recent years. As a result, local fisherman now find it challenging to secure a livelihood and they have to go further and further out to sea, where many have lost their lives.
The concept of Jën Rekk is to use murals and other art installations to create a framework for discussing overfishing. The main participants have been four artists, the Nguéniène women’s pottery group, and local painters of fishing boats. Other locals have also participated in different ways, including spontaneously helping with the murals while passing by on the street. The founders of the project even had local children paint their old car full of fish in order to promote the project. The goal of all this is to bring the lost fish back into people’s minds.
Clay oven construction at Portes et Passages du Retour art center
Portes et Passages du Retour has also experimented with different natural building techniques, including stabilized earth blocks and even a Nubian vault. During my stay at the art center I contributed to this part of the project by designing and building a clay oven for the art center. The original plan was to build a whole outdoor kitchen, but eventually the focus shifted to the oven because of the limited time I had. Building with earth around Joal is challenging because the local black earth is not ideal for construction. But for a small project like an oven the local earth still works well, especially after adding some sand, gravel and straw.
The goal was to use materials found at the site as much as possible. The main materials I used were clay, stones, gravel and hay from the site, plus some sand and laterite that was brought in from elsewhere. The most expensive material was actually water as this part of Senegal has suffered from droughts and water shortages for many years. There were multiple wells at the site but they were all dry, and so I had to rely on tap water which is regulated and only available at night in Joal.
Constructing a base for the oven to stand on took most of my time, but luckily I had some help from locals staying at the art center. I started by building a foundation and raised floor using mud, gravel and stones. I used a lot of stones so that the floor could remain strong even if it got wet during the rainy season. We then made small adobe bricks and built a base out of them. In the base I included a vaulted storage space that can be used to store firewood.
Constructing the floor of the oven took another day. For the oven to work well, there should be an insulating layer under the floor of the oven. In this case I used recycled glass bottles that I filled with straw and covered with more straw and mud. On top of this came the actual floor of the oven. The interior floor of the oven is usually built with fired bricks whose thermal mass helps regulate the temperature inside the oven. As fired bricks were expensive, in this case I improvised and built the floor using recycled clay roof tiles that I then covered with a mixture of laterite sand and a small amount of cement.
Once the base and floor were complete, the construction of the actual oven only took two days. The oven has a dome shape that I built using a sand mold, on top of which I added consecutive layers of earth. I had to use a lot of sand in the mixture in order to keep the oven from cracking as the local clay shrinks so much. In the first layer I didn’t add any straw in order to keep the thermal mass higher so that the oven could become and stay hotter.
The following day – once the first layer had dried enough to hold its form – I cut out a door and made an arched entrance with adobe bricks. I then continued adding more layers on top of the dome, waiting a while for the earth to dry in between. After the first layer I added several layers of straw in order to insulate the oven. In the final layers I reduced the amount of straw but kept some in order to reduce cracking and to make the oven stronger. Finally, it was time to remove the sand form and feel the satisfaction of the dome supporting itself, ready to be used.
