The experience of Africa was an encounter that would change the way I look at things. I started to think beauty is a moment, not some object and now I think even life itself can be art- the most beautiful art. With this idea I made the project, "Beautiful is some moments." This project aimed to understand more about the relationship between the Senegalese and garbage. My question was how people in St-Louis could have so much energy with a beautiful smile despite the fact that mountains of garbage surround them?
For this project, I cleaned an abandoned park for 36days accompanied by volunteering sanitation workers of the municipality of Saint-Louis. Then I installed 36 trees made with the garbage that I had collected for 36days in the park. Throughout the project I was being affected, bored, enthralled, irritated and inspired by people enjoying many beautiful moments with them. My work moved from making and finding beauty to participating and experiencing beauty.
Special Thanks to : Staffan Martikainen, Jarmo Omar Tahtukale, Ritta Liede, Asami Hayashida, Ali, Byungyun Kim, Thomas Rowell, Marie-Caroline Camara, Sanitation workers of the municipality of St-Louis and many others who made this project possible.
------------A year later, my friend and a great supportor of this project, Riitta sent me these pictures and wrote,
"And then, you cannot believe: your park is now always clean, the palmtrees have been planted there and the whole place seems to have changed into the way, you had wished! And people here keep saying that it was because of you. Yes, you can really be proud of yourself!! And you can only guess, how many times I have been telling to the residents about your incredible project. At the same time I'm encouraging people, who don't speak french, and I tell about the reminder you had written in your hand: Je ne parle pas francais. But it didn't at all stop you from what you did here! Here the recent pictures of the park. Something there has to be, of course, like this small water-plastic SI BELLE = SO BEAUTIFUL."
I had a look at the pictures and noticed the fences that used to be situated towards the river has gone and the place where the taxi drivers used to clean their cars using the river water has disappeared. And more importantly the park, Jardin du pont Feidherbe has become so clean and Si Belle!