The 2024 Biennale has opened the door to futuristic artistic expressions. The Nft exhibition, a novelty under the Dakar sky, brought together around ten artists under the curatorship of Anna-Alix Koffi. “The Wake, another dimension” brought together 11 artists from Africa and the diaspora. Among them, the Senegalese-Lebanese Linda Dounia Rebeiz, who presented a work in Mbour, her hometown.Nft, actually there are a lot of people who don’t know what it is. If you had to define this, how would you do it?
In fact, for me, Nft is a mechanism for archiving and putting artists’ works, documents on the blockchain… But in the case of art specifically, it is to give the artist the way to put his works online in a way where he can sell them, but also maintain sovereignty over his work and continue to follow it.
Are you presenting work on yourself?
I grew up in the town of Mbour. And what I noticed is that in a few years, the population completely exploded. There has been a strong migration from villages to the city which has undergone great changes in terms of architecture and others. So in fact, what I exactly wanted was to trace these changes through coding tools, computer programming and also AI. And it allowed me to look in the national and overseas archives, to retrace the evolution of the city from an urban point of view. And as you see, the work is really based on cartography.
How did you get to Nft?
It was a friend, one of the artists here, who introduced me to Nft. He’s basically Ghanaian, but he’s been a digital artist a little longer than me. And so, at a certain point, I realized that, since I work mainly on digital mediums and there isn’t really a big market where I was, I tried my hand at Nft and that opened me up to a bigger market. My collectors are based all over the world, in the United States, Germany, France, etc. And it’s really a way for me to make myself known and sell my works, but also to keep control over my production.
And how does this control work?
There is what we call a wallet, it’s a digital wallet where every time I put my art online, I create a contract that helps me already put a price on the work. Then, when the work is purchased, I know exactly in which wallet, in which digital wallet it is. And when it is resold, etc., I can always see its evolution. Because I’m the one who created the contract, so I’m the one in control.
If I understood correctly, your works are videos. Are people buying from these videos?
In fact, it can be a video, it can be a photo, but it’s really what we put online that is purchased.
And there, we see that it’s a market that’s exploding…
There has been a big period of explosion in recent years. Now it’s settling down a little more and I think it’s become a little more mature. The artists who are there, in fact, who already have a career, we can recognize them now, compared to the artists who came at the beginning just to maybe sell one, two, three things. So, there is a real culture of digital art which has found its place in the Nft.
And here in Africa, is it developed?
Yes, more and more, I think. When we talk about blockchain, it is very developed in Africa. People use crypto a lot in some countries.
What is blockchain?
Blockchain is digital currencies. So, when we talk about digital currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, all that, it is very developed in Africa. In Nigeria, in Kenya, people use this to buy goods. But for Nfts, I think it’s a little slower. But more and more, artists who work in digital in Africa are starting to recognize themselves with Nfts.
And so, is this your first time exhibiting or have you participated in several exhibitions before?
I started exhibiting in 2020 and I have been very lucky. I have exhibited all over the world. And I had some distinctions, prizes. So you could say I’ve been doing this for a long time. So, I was lucky.
Do you need to have advanced computer skills to be able to use it?
No, no, not necessarily, I don’t think so. You may need to be curious and know how to detect good information on the internet. But I don’t think a person necessarily needs to have computer skills. Because most Nft tools don’t use code. So, we don’t need to program. When we get information, when we read, we can use it.
And you, how do you manage to create? What is your creative process?
It depends. Personally, I use a lot of programming for my work, and AI too, which is another form of programming. So, I create my own algorithms.
Comments collected by Mame Woury THIOUBOU
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