Dak’Art, the Dakar Biennial has announced its participating artists for its upcoming 12th edition in the Senegalese capital in May 2016.

Curated by French luminary Simon Njami, the biennial will include 65 artists from all over the African continent, including work by the late French-Moroccan photographer Leila Alaoui, who was murdered in a terror attack in Burkina Faso last week.

Dak’Art—Africa’s largest biennial—will include presentations from artist form Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi, Sudan, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, amongst others. The biennial also includes artists from African diaspora countries such as France and Italy.

The biennial sees its role as one of promoting artists in Africa who don’t usually receive this kind of platform. “Dak’Art objectives are to expand the possibilities of promoting African artists poorly represented in major international art, but also for Africa to develop its own speech on aesthetics and to participate in conceptualization of theoretical tools for analysis and appreciation of artistic proposals.” they state on their website.

Njami sees it as his mission to bring the biennial up to date and into touch with the contemporary art world. “[My task is to] bring to life this old lady, make it alive, seductive,” he told Senegalese daily La Soleil as reported by Le Monde Afrique.

Simon Njami
Photo: via wikipedia commons

There has been much hype surrounding the contemporary art scene in some African countries, namely Nigeria and Ghana. Collector and construction tycoon Marwan Zakhem recently announced the opening of gallery 1957 in Accra where there’s a growing scene with many invested in facilitating its growth.

Meanwhile, Congolese art collector and businessman Sindika Dokolo has launched a worldwide campaign to return to the African continent African art that currently resides in Western Institution and auction houses.

With international art fairs such as the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair and the Armory Show’s 2016 Focus section dedicated to both African diaspora art and art from international African perspectives, the art world is certainly opening up to the number of existing artists and creative communities in the continent.

Art events like the Dak’Art, and the African Biennale of Photography Bamako Encounters, in Mali can only on strengthen this.

Here’s the list of participating artists by country:

SENEGAL

Dak’Art will on view in venues throughout Dakar, Senegal, from May 3 – June 2.