#El Barco del Desierto.

Africa is known for its bold, unapologetic use of colour. Stories are told in pigments, tones and hues; a kaleidoscope as diverse as the cultures and peoples of the continent. For the initiative Colours of Africa, a collaborative project with Google Arts & Culture, we asked 60 African creatives to capture the unique spirit of their country in a colour which represents home to them.

The projects they have created are personal and distinct stories of Africa, put into images, videos, texts and illustrations. Each artist has also attempted to articulate what being African means to their identity and view of the world.

Colour: Desert Journey
Country:Western Sahara

Artwork Rationale

El Barco del Desierto is a painting that I did for my project The Ship of the Desert. This ship has been in the Saharawi refugee camps for 34 years, some 1800km off the coast of Algeria.

My project was to return this ship to the sea and turn it into the flagship of an effort to defend the rights of the Saharawi people. The painting represents the great effort and the high price that the Saharawi people are paying in their struggle for freedom.

In 1999 I travelled from Cuba, where I had studied, to the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria and founded the Peace Museum in the El Aaiun camp. In 2007 I participated as an artist and organiser of the inaugural International Festival of Arts and Human Rights of the Sahara (ARTIFARITI). In the last several editions of the festival, I have presented phases of my project The Ship of the Desert.

My idea is that the ship carries a Saharawi family with their claims for peace to each port and each city that it passes. It also reaches out to international facilities to demand the cessation of the plundering of the natural resources of the Saharawi people such as the illegal fishing agreements in the territory of Western Sahara.

I believe that the arts and the culture of peace are the best means for social transformation.

What it means to be African

Being African means that you are descendants of the first man. To be African is to have the courage to hunt with lions, run with leopards and swim with dolphins. These are the qualities of theAfrican ancestors who crossed seas, rivers and mountains to reign in all corners of the earth.
To be African is to be Masai, to be Zulu or to be from the Tuareg. It also means being from South Africa, Namibia and Nigeria, being from Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya, being from Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.
To be African is to live in the dense jungles in the Congo, the vast savannas in Kenya, or in the enormous deserts of the Sahara. We are the Africans who built the pyramids of Egypt, and the city of Timbuktu, but our most important work is the conquest of all the continents of the earth. That is why being African is diversity, generosity and solidarity.
Africa is the book where all the history of man is written; his past, his present and his future. This sacred book is in the custody of the authentic and diverse peoples of Africa.

Biography

Mohamed Moulud Yeslem is a Saharawi artist and activist born in 1977 in Auserd, Western Sahara. He studied architecture at the Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba.
His art practice is an aesthetic response to the oppression that the Sahraoui people have faced over so many decades. As Yeslem himself says: “I am an artist who believes that a paintbrush is a weapon for liberty and expression, which has a longer range than any missile, because it reaches the hearts of people.”
Yeslem’s art practice is on the tradition of the many contemporary artists, such as Yoko Ono, who use their artwork to intervene in and transform a politically over-determined and oppressive space. His most recent project is an urgent response to the danger of the minefields in Western Sahara. In place of the weapons, Yeslem is poppies made of paper, plastic or fabric – one flower for each mine. The project also includes a film to raise awareness.