DAKAR (Senegal), Feb 22 — Currently in residence in Senegal, the artists Mamady Kanté and Fabien Borde have created a sculpture made entirely from recycled plastic waste.

About to be completed, the work stands 2.5 meters tall and takes the form of a lion. It represents a tribute to the pair’s host country, while raising awareness about the climate crisis.

A contemporary sculptor from Guinea, Mamady Kanté specializes in creating sculptures from recycled plastic or papier-mâché.

After paying homage to the founder of the Kingdom of Dubreka (Guinea), Soumba Toumany, the artist is now working on a new creation: a lion made entirely of recycled plastic waste.

In association with the French sculptor, Fabien Borde, on this particular project, Mamady Kanté has been in residence at the Centre Culturel Blaise Senghor in Dakar, Senegal, since January.

To create their work, the two artists collected plastic waste of all kinds, which they then cleaned before integrating into their sculpture, unmodified.

A close look at the lion reveals that one of its paws is resting on a semi-circular shape, which is actually half of a globe made of plastic waste.

"The aim is to show people who will look at the work that these items of plastic waste are everywhere on the planet and that pollution, like art, has no borders,” Mamady Kanté told ETX Studio.

The decision to depict a lion is not insignificant either.

"With Fabien, we always find out beforehand about the emblems that characterize the country in which we work, because it is important for us to pay tribute to them by drawing on their history.

"The lion is both the symbol of Africa and the emblem of the Senegalese national football team. It is also the king of the forest and the savanna, so it plays a role in raising awareness to say stop to plastic waste that also ends up in these ecosystems and their habitat,” the sculptor explains.

Their sculpture, which stands 2.5 meters tall, will be handed over on February 25 to be exhibited at the Blaise Senghor Cultural Centre. Its two creators hope to sell it to a public institution (e.g., the Dakar City Hall), so that it can fulfil its mission of raising public awareness about plastic pollution and the climate crisis in general.

This is not the first time that Mamady Kanté and Fabien Borde have created a work on the theme of ecology. A few years earlier, the two artists created two sculptures exhibited on the Loos Islands near Conakry (Guinea).

One of them, entirely made from recycled plastics, pays tribute to the fishermen who were the first to arrive on these islands located off the coast of the Guinean capital.

Over the years, Mamady Kanté’s ecological commitment has grown stronger. This commitment and awareness are illustrated in the choice of materials that shape his works. A graduate of the Institut Supérieur Des Arts de Guinée, the artist has experimented with several materials.

"I don’t want to limit myself to the lack of resources, and even less to work with materials whose exploitation is dangerous for humanity and our environment, for example wood, a material with which I nevertheless learned to work.

That’s why I switched to papier-mâché, then later and thanks to Fabien Borde, to recycled plastics,” explains Mamady Kanté. His collaboration with the French sculptor has indeed played a defining role in his own awareness of plastic pollution.

A subject that is of particular concern to both artists, and one which they are keen to highlight in each of their joint works. — ETX Studio