I’m currently on a residency at Thread, a cultural centre and artist residency programme in Sinthian, a remote village in eastern Senegal near the Gambia River and the border with Mali, funded by the Joseph and Anni Albers Foundation.
The earth is red, the heat is intense, and the mangos are ripe.
I’ve been working mainly outside, collecting eucalyptus bark and leaves, as well as local hibiscus flowers for dyeing Japanese aragami paper and cotton.
The locals speak Pular and French. Village life revolves around social gatherings, tending to community gardens, selling fish caught in the nearby Gambia River, maintaining the beautiful thatch houses, and prayer at the local mosque. There is a slow rhythm to the day, which I’m enjoying. The afternoon begins with the sound of kids playing basketball and football on the court adjacent to my studio space. One afternoon, we made paper boats and floated them in dye pots I’d collected from the market. And I’m very grateful to our hosts Cisse and Habib, and fellow artist @lorenamargaritas for their good company and patience with my poor French!
I’m excited about the work I’ve been making here, thinking about temporal spaces as places for ritual and rural folk traditions. I look forward to sharing images of the finished pieces.
@thread_senegal@le_korsa@albers_foundation
#naturaldye #artistresidency #artiststudio
Résidence d’art à Thread @thread_senegal ,
novembre-décembre 2025
Fondation Josef & Anni Albers
Sinthian, Sénégal
Je suis venu au Sénégal, vers l’inconnu. C’était un choix important pour moi de m’éloigner de mon travail de graphiste à Paris.
Pendant les premiers jours de ma résidence à Thread, j’ai dessiné d’après modèles vivants. Les attitudes, les mouvements, les tenues vestimentaires, les sourires et les regards des habitants de Sinthian, le village attenant à la fondation Albers, me fascinaient. Mais c’est l’eau, ressource rare et précieuse, qui est devenue le cœur de mon travail. J’ai décidé de dessiner tous les objets manufacturés qui permettent d’acheminer l’eau, de la préserver : bonbonnes, bouteilles, bidons, réservoirs… À partir de ces objets du quotidien, de différents calibres, j’ai cherché à rendre la variété de leurs formes, de leurs matériaux, de leurs techniques et de leurs couleurs.
crayons de couleurs
encre
#threadsenegal
#albersfoundation
#threadsenegal
#artistresidency
#artistresidencyprogram
#josefandannialbersfoundation
#worksonpaper
#frenchdesign
#frenchdesigners
#lekorsa
Art residency programme at Thread @thread_senegal , Fondation Josef & Anni Albers
November–December 2025
Sinthian, Senegal
I came to Senegal, into the unknown. It was an important decision for me to leave my job as a graphic designer in Paris.
During the first few days of my residency at Thread, I drew extensively from live models. I was fascinated by the everyday attitudes and movements of the people living in Sinthian, the village adjacent to the Albers Foundation. Their clothing, their smiles, their expressions. But it was water, a rare and precious resource, that became the focus of my work. I decided to draw all the manufactured objects used to transport and preserve water: jugs, bottles, cans, tanks… Using these quotidian objects of various sizes, I sought to capture the variety of their shapes, materials, techniques and colours.
color pencils
#threadsenegal
#albersfoundation
#threadsenegal
#artistresidency
#artistresidencyprogram
#josefandannialbersfoundation
#worksonpaper
#frenchdesign
#frenchdesigners
#lekorsa
Résidence d’art à Thread @thread_senegal ,
novembre-décembre 2025
Fondation Josef & Anni Albers
Sinthian, Sénégal
Je suis venu au Sénégal, vers l’inconnu. C’était un choix important pour moi de m’éloigner de mon travail de graphiste à Paris.
Pendant les premiers jours de ma résidence à Thread, j’ai dessiné d’après modèles vivants. Les attitudes, les mouvements, les tenues vestimentaires, les sourires et les regards des habitants de Sinthian, le village attenant à la fondation Albers, me fascinaient. Mais c’est l’eau, ressource rare et précieuse, qui est devenue le cœur de mon travail. J’ai décidé de dessiner tous les objets manufacturés qui permettent d’acheminer l’eau, de la préserver : bonbonnes, bouteilles, bidons, réservoirs… À partir de ces objets du quotidien, de différents calibres, j’ai cherché à rendre la variété de leurs formes, de leurs matériaux, de leurs techniques et de leurs couleurs.
crayons de couleurs
#threadsenegal
#albersfoundation
#threadsenegal
#artistresidency
#artistresidencyprogram
#josefandannialbersfoundation
#worksonpaper
#frenchdesign
#frenchdesigners
#lekorsa
13 moons have passed since I participated in the Josef and Anni Albers arts Residency in Senegal @thread_senegal .
This was a period of triumph’s and failures (in a good way), reflection, sense and awareness.
As a parent artist this is the first residency program I was able to participate in, a blessing for the soul. The studio was a place the held me in captive embrace. The landscape well travelled and absorbed by my feet and heart. High mint sending the air, red earth in the soul.
Works developed in hand-bound sketch books, built friendships, made land-art sculptures which stand in open fields.
The act of making is to commune, keeping eyes wide open and allowing the process to take over.
Thank you to the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation @albers_foundation & Matthais Persson @vicopersson for the opportunity x 🌕
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#threadsenegal
#albersfoundation
#threadsenegal
#artistresidency
#artistresidencyprogram
#WomenArtists #kategoodrichstudio
#environmentalart
#visualart
#landart
@albers_foundation
Un mois hors du temps, à Sinthian 🌿
La résidence @thread_senegal de la Fondation Josef & Anni Albers et de l’association @le_korsa m’a offert un cadre unique : la nature, le silence, l’absence totale de connexion. Une parenthèse pour se couper du monde, se recentrer, se ressourcer.
Ces semaines m’ont permis de plonger pleinement dans l’écriture, le dessin, et bien d’autres explorations encore.
Cette expérience m’a aussi rappelé le prix @artofchange21 que j’ai eu la chance de remporter l’année dernière, et l’importance de travailler avec la nature, avec ses éléments. Ici, à Sinthian, tout a résonné comme un prolongement, une continuité naturelle de ce chemin.
📸 Cissé / Assoukrou Aké
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#assoukrouaké #assoukrouake #residences #threadresidence #josefalbers #art #nature #écologie
« Mères » Née d’une réflexion sur la guérison par la nature, l'œuvre évoque la transmission des savoirs traditionnels.
Elle rend hommage aux femmes qui, avec dévouement, veillent jour et nuit sans relâche à la santé et au bien-être de leurs enfants et de leur famille.
Aux femmes, gardiennes silencieuses de la vie.
Ces femmes qui, entre ombre et lumière, guérissent le monde avec leurs mains silencieuses.
«Mères», Pigments naturels, Mbant Mare sur toile, diptyque, 60 x 70cm ×2, 2025.
#Artistresidency #Threadresidency #Threadsenegal #naturalremedy #Albersresidency #Josefandannialbersfoundation #Albersfoundation #Sowblaya #Abdoulayesow #Endmalaria #Mbantmare
📍@thread_senegal représente une opportunité d’approfondir mon travail autour de la relation entre art, nature et santé publique.
Cette résidence a élargi mon regard, m’a permis de donner une voix artistique à une question vitale : comment préserver et valoriser ce qui nous guérit ?
#Artistresidency #Threadresidency #Threadsenegal #Reforestation #InteretCommun #naturalremedy #Albersresidency #Josefandannialbersfoundation #Albersfoundation #Sowblaya #Abdoulayesow #Endmalaria #Mbantmare
Mattts, 2025
The woven mat is ubiquitous in Senegal.
Historically hand woven in natural palm fibers, today’s industrial mats are plastic, colorful, and incredibly durable.
Like the vibrant color clash of fabrics on the street, they contribute to the haptic backdrop to everyday life.
Used principally as a “second ground” for all daily activities from gathering, to selling, to resting, to prayer, these simple patterned surfaces inspired us with their ties to culture and place.
Through a series of tucks and folds, we found ways to attach the mats to the existing bamboo furniture, treating them like upholstery and benefiting from the additional comfort of their generous forms.
@thread_senegal@albers_foundation@toshiko.mori.architect
Some images of my solar dyeing practice and outdoor studio from these last two months at @thread_senegal — an artist-in-residence program by the @albers_foundation and @le_korsa
Thread is a cultural center situated in Sinthian, a rural village in the Tambacounda region of Senegal. The building is conceived and imagined by architect @toshiko.mori_
A huge thank you to the Albers Foundation for this two-month opportunity to truly immerse myself in Sinthian’s everyday culture and community.
Definitely an unforgettable, one-of-a-kind experience that will continue to shape my journey.
With generous support of @wal.bru.international
#thread #threadsenegal #albersfoundation #artistinresidence #celinevahsen #solardyeing #contemporarytextiles #weaving #naturaldye
Some research impressions — my color sticks. Enveloped wooden sticks with yarns, some of them with natural dyed thread here in Senegal.
The act of wrapping thread around sticks, initially just for counting warp threads (I didn’t have a ruler), became a creative gesture itself — it’s like wrapping sensation into something tangible. The sun and the earth was giving this specific shine to these tactile colors, reflecting the haptic qualities and aspects of the materials.
This repetitive gesture felt familiar, something I recognize from the process of weaving, very embodied. I didn’t wanna stop, so I kept going, thinking and reflecting about color notions in different times or cultures @thread_senegal by @albers_foundation
#michelpastoureau, excerpt of #blue
„Colors are so important in textile materials because they mark the most widely documented area for historians to explore the role of color in a particular society… the first textile dyeing activities are placed between the 6th and 4th millennia before our era. The first pieces of dyed fabric that have survived to the present day come from Asia and Africa.
In most sub-Saharan African societies, differentiation between red tones and brown, yellow, green, or blue tones is in certain cases relatively irrelevant. What matters more about a particular color is whether it is dry or wet, soft or hard, smooth or rough, silent or loud, happy or dreary.
Color does not exist on its own and does not only depend on vision.“
Photo 4 & 10 @elenisikelianos
Photo 18 @stephenburksmanmade
With generous support of @wal.bru.international
#thread #albersfoundation #artistinresidence #celinevahsen #naturalcolors
