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DES SAFOUS POUR LES BAYAM-SELLAMS
ceramics, sound installation

The Last Place They Thought Of
cur. Sorana Munsya
KUNSTHALL MECHELEN
Belgium - 2024

Soñ Gweha's "Des safous pour les Bayam-Sellams" (2021) examines the dynamics of postcolonial cultural exchange between France and Africa through food. 

The sculpture features bowls of ceramic replicas of safous, purple African plums sold in the markets in Paris. For Gweha, this transaction echoes the experience of women street vendors in Cameroon, called Bayam-Sellam—a slang name for women who buy food in villages to resell in urban markets.



The Last Place They Thought Of explores and thinks about notions of territory and space from a black and female or non-binary perspective, offering stories rarely told and not shared enough. This exhibition is curated by Sorana Munsya. Its title is taken from a chapter in intellectual Kathrine McKittrick's essay,” and invites us to reflect on the possibility of a black conceptualization of geography, in opposition to what the latter calls traditional, non-black geography.

Black geography would be multiscalar, taking into account not only the materiality of places, but also their imaginations, representations and experiences. This exhibition, which brings together several artistic disciplines including installation, video, performance and photography, is based on the reflections and creations of these different women and black artists living in different parts of the globe. Each poses the question of how social position alters the shape of spaces and retraces geographical lines. In doing so, we can begin to think about how spaces can be considered, and how the knowledge and experience of those placed on the margins can thicken and transform them.