Senegal Archives - Dante Today

Pélagie Gbaguidi, Sacrifice (2013)

April 28, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“Sacrifice—it appears twice in the usual sense of ‘solemn offer of victims and gifts’ made to godheads. In a broader sense, it refers to any offer, real or symbolic, material or spiritual, made to God: ‘Even as thine own Angels of their will/ Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing, /So many all men make the sacrifice of theirs’ (Purgatorio, Canto XI, 11). In particular, the vow is described as a sacrifice, insofar as its formulation obliges the man, standing before the divinity, to perform or not perform a given action, thus offering to God one’s own freedom of choice. It is Beatrice who clarifies to Dante what the importance of the vow is, as a spontaneous sacrifice and offering to God: ‘closing between God and man the compact, /A sacrifice is of this treasure made’ (Paradiso, Canto V, 29).”

Retrieved from The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

For more information on Pélagie Gbaguidi, see Wikipedia. For more on the artist’s body of work, see AWARE, the Archive of Women Artists, Research, and Exhibitions.

Ndary Lo, The Day After (2012)

April 21, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“I see the world we are living in as both Hell and Purgatory. Our only hope in this life of ours, all that we have left is to try our best to be admitted to heaven someday. The Day After is an installation in which, after walking a long way through a dense and dark forest, one reaches that space where everything seems to be suspended, where one can feel this particular tension that we experience before embarking on a journey of which we don’t really know the name. The place is organized in a materialized circle and inhabited by iron characters which are ready to take off. The circle, in fact a spiral, symbolizes the energy of human beings, who find themselves in a new configuration, and they feel disoriented and experience a feeling of unreality.”

From The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

Read more about Senegalese sculptor Ndary Lô, see Wikipedia.fr.

“Di soglia in soglia” between Dakar and Ravenna Cultural Event in Ravenna, Italy (2021)

April 10, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

“The city of Ravenna is dedicating 30 July to the deep cultural bonds established over the years with Senegal, remembering Mandiaye N’Diaye, who initiated these relations. The day is also in honor of Dante: ‘Di soglia in soglia’ (‘From rank to rank’) is a verse from Canto III of Paradise and in the evening Canto I of the Divine Comedy will be read, translated for the first time into Wolof.

“It is at this point that we arrive in Ravenna: the Institute of Dakar contacted the Teatro delle Albe, which has been involved in Senegal for over thirty years following the long-time collaboration with the Senegalese actor and director Mandiaye N’Diaye, who passed away in 2014, proposing the publication, together, of a book that would collect testimonies of the cultural ties between Ravenna and Senegal and the creation of this day on 30 July, dedicated to these relationships and to Mandiaye N’Diaye, all in the name of Dante, in the year of the 700th anniversary of his death.” [. . .] —Italiana, July 30, 2021 (retrieved April 10, 2022)

The event included a round table discussion of Italian-Senegalese relations as well as a presentation on the translation of Canto I into Wolof and the work of Mandiya N’Diaye. Later on, a reading of Canto I in both Italian and Wolof was held at the tomb of Dante in Ravenna. For more information and a full program, visit the event’s website here.

How to Cite