​

I walked along with the lingering thought that I knew nothing about the history
of my late father and the lineage of my black ancestors; my ancestral memory
felt akin to the iridescent surface of a bubble, like a feeling of loss upon
awakening from a dream impossible for me to recall.
This series feels like the abstract idea that I have of myself, the acceptance
that forgetting is also a starting point and a fleeting, necessary memory.

Sama Guent Guii, in which my memory is a dream.

We are never the same when we wake up.
I have to think about this more...

I see in me, deep within me, the traces of my ancestors. I am the past that
resurfaces. A past that cannot be destroyed, nor diminished.

I am the sedimentary rock of this fossilized past, the trace of living organisms...
abstract in sensation... in reverie...

Where am I from? Who am I?

I am the past which reappears
I am what is transformed by their memories and my memories
I am these black bodies that I do not recognize
I am this blur
I am made of memory and oblivion
I am this monument of nature, this being that is continually being reborn

This other, who sees themselves as the other.

​

Report from this dream
Mame-Diarra Niang, 2022