Senegal - Bideew Festival

The 2024 edition of the Bideew festival took place between October 23 and October 26 in Tene Toubab and Ngaparou, Senegal. During these 4 days, the festival invites audiences to participate in the fields of Art, Astronomy, Gastronomy, Science, and Technology, asking them questions about the connections between these fields and how the impact they can have on people’s lives.

In conversation with Mané Touré

In times marked by political tensions and struggles, festivalmakers can create spaces for communities to come together and open up conversation about culture, arts, politics and science. Mane Touré, founder of Festival Bideew, aims for the festival to be a ‘democratic school’ and works with team collectively with artists and scholars and local citizen.

After her space in Dakar got broken down by the government, Toure thought of ways to set up a festival outside of the capital city of Dakar. There is little support for cultural events or festivals in Senegal, especially those operating in smaller towns and villages. When the Diouf government was in office in the 1980’s and 1990’s, several tensions rose between governmental entities and the cultural sector. A large amount of artists and cultural workers moved abroad as a result of a decrease in artistic freedom and lack of government support. As a result of disagreements and conflicts between government and artist, various spaces got shut down and broken down by the government. Even though the current day government has not set it’s focus on establishing strong and healthy cultural support structures, Dakar does host a vibrant and dynamic independence cultural sector. Due to little governmental support structures and a lack of proper communication between cultural professionals and government officials, Toure and others working in the cultural sector of Senegal have found their own ways of organizing and creating artistic productions in a more independent manner.

Even though the independent cultural sector in Dakar has been well developed over the last years, Toure points out that there is only a small number of people participating in cultural events and activities especially outside the bigger cities. With her work, she aims to create more possibilities for people to get actively involved in arts and culture. Connections with local, but also international communities are crucial network structures in the Senegalese cultural sector and cultural organizing. Through the focus on strong connections with local communities, festivals and festival makers are bringing together citizens, artists and scholars in more participatory ways. There is a focus on collaborative models rather than limiting oneself through the lack of institutional support structures.

A Community Supported Cultural Sector

Toure has built a good connection with the people living in the town the festival takes place. She mentions how the connection and the trust she gets from the people in the village creates a crucial foundation for the work she does. By inviting guest speakers, artists and organizing workshops, Bideew is more than an arts-festival, it aims to bring people together and gives them the possibility to collectively learn about for science, culture, agriculture and community. She mentions that ‘’the festival is like an open school, a democratic school. It's to give chance for everybody to meet, to learn and get knowledge. For me, this brings democracy’’. In this understanding, democracy can be seen as the ways in which people come together and actively engage in conversation and taking action. 

It highlights how regardless of (inter)national tensions and difficult collaboration with institutions, festivals such as Bideew can create spaces for discussion and collectivity on a more local level. Regardless of the budget or additional partners Toure works with, she emphasized that it is the people in the town that are the most important, and the first ‘partners’ she works with for the festival. Additionally, she mentioned that she is not worried if partners and funders will come and support the festival or not, as the community she works with  ‘accepts and believes in the festival’. This is, for her, the most important part in the foundation of the festival and the trust in the organization behind it.

International Collaboration

Next to having strong local connections and the trust of local communities, Toure explains how the festival has a lot of international collaborations and has received funding from various international partners. Toure has set up various collaboration between Bideew and festivals and schools in for example Spain and France, but has also worked in collaboration with the Delegation of Wallonia Brussels in Dakar. Within these projects, education and collaboration are central and connect people from different places. In these international collaborations, culture and science can create places for shared experience and opens up conversations. Even though the festival has a strong focus on local communicates, it is open for everyone. This bringing together local communities and tourists participating in activities. A specific focus within the program are activities for women and young people. 

On artistic level Toure also points out the various international collaborations with for example artists and creatives from Burkina Faso, Marocco and more. Toure empathizes the importance of creating spaces and inviting people to create, share and participate actively in cultural or scientific events. The festival is an invitation for people to come together and do something rather than sit in and merely listen.