INTERVIEW WITH SAÏDOU DICKO

CAN WE SAY THAT YOUR WORKS ARE A WAY TO PAY TRIBUTE TO YOUR ORIGINS AND YOUR CHILDHOOD?

Indeed, my works pay tribute to my roots and my childhood. They are my main sources of inspiration. In my work, I try to share the pleasant souvenirs I have from the time I was a shepherd. Through my works, I try my best to share the emotions I felt in these landscapes but also the discoveries I have made and the moments of delight I have experienced there. This is also why I pay tribute to the generosity of the land, of nature and the landscapes - so poor but at the same time so generous. It is really important to me to share the beauty of these places. My work is a mix of all of this.  

WHAT DOES INSPIRE YOUR WORK? 

Childhood inspires me a lot. I’m lucky enough to travel and be able to mix what I have seen. My drawings also talk a lot about plastic that we can see now lying around everywhere, in every country. What interests me is how we can use plastic intelligently and how we can optimise it. I am not an advocate of criticism at all costs. There is some good in this material and it is about how to ration it and use it wisely. We shouldn’t just ban plastic and cut down trees to make cardboard. I have worked with waste materials in some of my pieces. Ecology has a central place in all my work. In our country, we say: «Nature grows old», like people. It melts, it dries, sometimes the resources are no longer sufficient.  

YOU ARE OF PEUL ORIGIN, HOW DOES THIS CULTURE INFLUENCE YOUR WORK? 

Exactly. The Peul culture is part of my identity. Everything I have learned, both socially and artistically, comes from this culture. The imagination of my childhood, directly rooted in the Peul tradition, is the genesis of my work and the mothership of my inspiration. For a time in my life, my family and I were nomads. As a child, I herded goats, sheep and cows. Children are bigger than goats. I guess that is the reason why I draw mostly goats. From above, you can see them better to draw, while cows are too high to be fully perceived by a child. Animals are extremely important in the Peul tradition. We eat their milk and meat. We celebrate them and we take care of them. Actually, we live mainly on milk, especially when we take the herds out to pasture. Meat is mostly reserved for celebrations. The animals create the social link. They keep people close. This is the basis of nomadic life. 

WHAT DID LEAD YOU TO COVER THE SKIN OF YOUR CHARACTERS WITH PAINT OR BLACK INK? 

In my first photographs, I was only photographing the shadows of my models. Now, I cover their skin with black ink. Shadows fascinate me. I like their imaginary and childlike side. I used to capture the shadows on the walls or the floors, depending on the background. At some point, I started to be limited because the sun does not reach every wall. There were backgrounds that I liked but where the shadow did not go. Thus, the natural following step in my work was to directly take pictures of people. From there, I told myself: why don’t you turn them into shadows? So, I started to paint the bodies, in order to transform them into shadows. I like the fact that shadows call to our imagination. Anyone is free to decide to project their own silhouette, their own face. Anyone is free to create these shadows. That’s why I cover the skin of my characters with black. For me, it is really important to consider everyone as a human being. This is what I try to share through these silhouettes. I paint my characters to transform them into neutral beings. Human beings, without colour or any religious affiliation. It is really men as human beings that I represent. It is what links us that really matters for me. 

WHAT IS THE PLACE OF COLOUR IN YOUR WORK? HOW DO YOU CHOOSE THE FABRICS FOR THE BACKGROUNDS OF YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS? 

Colour has a central place in my work because I grew up surrounded by colours: whether they be the fabrics that my mother embroidered, the decoration of our family home with enamelled dishes; whether in daily life through our clothes; whilst I was in the village or in Ouaga (Ouagadougou), where everyone dresses with lots of colours, or when we were going to the market where everything is also very colourful. Echoing these memories, colour imbues my art. That is also why I often choose the fabrics I use to create my backgrounds from the market. I have been buying and keeping them for years. So, I photograph them and use them as backgrounds. It is a way to pay tribute to studio photography and to the backgrounds that photographers used when we were going out as children to take pictures. In these studios, we had the freedom to choose between several backgrounds: several drawn landscapes, in nature with wild animals, etc. We had posters with skyscrapers in New York. There were a lot of possibilities. So that is also what I try to share through my photos. That is why I photograph a lot of fabrics that come from the market, from trash, or even from people that I stop in the street, to photograph their bag or their jacket. Often, they are fabrics that speak to me and for which I tell myself: «Yes, this fabric can match this person’s soul». 

WHAT IS YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS FOR YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS? HOW DO YOU WORK WITH THE FABRIC BACKGROUNDS IN YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS? 

I don’t consider myself a photographer but rather a visual artist who uses a camera. I try to be both: a studio photographer and a photojournalist. I use my journalism and transform it by adding a background. In this way, I turn original photographs into studio photographs. I want to highlight the artisanal work of weavers. It is as if I were weaving, not thread by thread but digitally. I erase the photo. I erase the lines, thread by thread, to create a grid. Then, by erasing the original photo, the second photo in the background appears. Finally, I overlay the two photos. My backgrounds can be photos of fabrics, painted walls, tiles - taken during my travels in Morocco, or elsewhere. I use digital tools but I do not retouch the images, the background nor the first image. To combine both, I copy the same process used by weavers but with a digital tool. I pay tribute to craftsmen who create things from their hands. I pay tribute to all these photo studios that I liked to discover. I also pay tribute to all photo reporters - who are courageous photographers - who share a lot with us, allowing us to travel and making us discover a number of things through their images. I try to combine all these elements while playing around them. 

GENERALLY SPEAKING, WHAT IMAGE OF BURKINA FASO DO YOU WANT TO CONVEY? 

I would say living together, joy, hospitality and mutual help! There are so many images that we can’t mention everything!