DREAMING OF DAKAR

A major biennial has put the capital of Senegal on the global art map, but smaller galleries and spiritual spaces expose the city’s soul.

- Kayla Stewart

“THIS IS ALL the result of a dream,” Mouhamed Seyni Guèye, the imam of Dakar’s Mosque of the Divinity, told me as we walked its grounds. One night in 1973, Guèye dreamed of a grand mosque set on a beach. Believing this to be a prophecy, he commissioned architect Cheikh Ngom to design the building. More than two decades later, in 1997, his dream was finally realized.

I gazed up at the mosque, its green-domed minarets soaring some 150 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, its façade punctuated by rows of green-and-red-trimmed geometric windows. The mosque was an architectural wonder that, as I would discover over the course of my weeklong trip, captured so many of Dakar’s characteristics: it was reverent and imaginative, a symbiosis of art and religion.

In Dakar, the capital of a country where 97 percent of the population identifies as Muslim, I found a palpable connection between spirituality and creativity. I visited in June, during Eid al-Adha, the Islamic holiday known in West Africa as Tabaski. In addition to the religious celebration, which was in full swing, the city was alive with art.

“Dakar’s soul really is tethered to the practice of art,” said Cherif Mbodji, a Dakar-born restaurateur who lives in Houston, where I’m from. I’d gotten to know him through my work as a food reporter. When Mbodji mentioned he was going to Senegal, I decided to schedule my trip at the same time. He became my de facto tour guide for the week, and together we explored the city’s religious buildings, galleries, beaches, and burgeoning arts neighborhoods.