DRIANKÉS
Naëtt Mbaye
07 Décembre 2024
Médina, dakar
Avec la contribution de Carole Diop et Audrey d’Erneville
REGARDE !
The word "Drianké" was created in 1944. As the story goes, the term is a mix between English and Wolof, invented to describe beautiful, stylish Senegalese women who were seducing American soldiers based in their country.
It's a voluptuous, stylish woman who is also "Jongué," meaning she knows how to seduce a man. This concept was always fascinating to me and mysterious. She can be loud and exuberant. Her attire is colorful and always elegant. She dances in a way that makes men shiver. She is unapologetic about her curves, hair, and extravagant makeup.
I wanted to learn more about these women and how Senegalese women are defining and creating their very own vision of what beauty is or should be. I spent my childhood trying to imitate women who didn't look like me, women with lighter skin, smoother hair, and skinnier bodies. I spent part of my adulthood working in the fashion industry, surrounded by the creation of images with women who didn't look like me, so women like me could consciously, or not, dream about looking like them. Beauty is not only about how you look; Beauty for some people means getting representation: being seen for who you are, being allowed to see yourself in the image you are consuming, and feeling like there is nothing wrong with how YOU are beautiful.
A certain kind of beauty will make getting a job easier; a specific type of beauty will make people act a certain way around you. A certain kind of beauty was only visible recently. Beauty is about culture. No matter their age differences or backgrounds, these women I photographed were proud to be beautiful in the "Drianké" way, the Senegalese way.
They are proud to be the kind of women their mothers taught them to be, and their mothers before them, you learn to be a woman like that. These are the lessons the colonizers could not erase; they couldn't grasp the immortality of it. The pictures weren't enough. I chose to document through film and short interviews to let these women speak for themselves about their idea of what being beautiful means. Indeed there are still what I call "beauty standards traumas" that they might have to fight, like every black woman, but being proud of their beauty in a cultural way gives them another type of strength of self-confidence. That is also what I want for myself. But it's also something that I desire as a collective experience. We must include new voices to redefine who we are as a whole.
Présentation
Naëtt Mbaye
ÉVÈNEMENT
EVENT
Balade dans la Médina avec Carole Diop.
Le samedi 07 décembre à 15h sur le parking du marché Soumbedioune.
© Audrey d’Erneville
À PROPOS
NAËTT MBAYE
Naëtt Mbaye est une photographe franco-sénégalaise. Après ses études à Paris et pendant plus de dix ans, elle a travaillé dans la mode et auprès de grands noms du luxe, en explorant divers rôles au sein de cette industrie. Ces expériences lui ont permis de déconstruire les représentations occidentalo-centrées et néocoloniales avec lesquelles elle a grandi sur le continent, tout en intégrant une réflexion sociologique sur les enjeux de la représentation et de la diversité. Cette approche lui a forgé une vision claire des images qu’elle souhaite créer, valorisant une esthétique affranchie.
Naëtt vit et travaille aujourd'hui au Sénégal. Imprégnée de la culture sénégalaise, elle aspire à la disséquer, à remettre en question et interroger les rapports au sein de nos sociétés, notamment pour les femmes et les minorités. Elle y explore les faces cachées où des modèles alternatifs de genre et de rôles sociaux existent malgré des liens complexes entre croyances, traditions et religion. Par son travail, elle cherche ainsi à contribuer à une redéfinition de ces rapports, en créant des images qui célèbrent l’identité et la pluralité culturelle.