Portrait of artist Mohamed Moulud Yeslem
Design Indaba
Cape Town, South Africa
Artist Mohamed Moulud Yeslem, who hails from Western Sahara, was selected by Design Indaba to take part in our collaborative initiative with Google Arts & Culture, titled Colours of Africa. 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, 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.
- Title: Portrait of artist Mohamed Moulud Yeslem
- 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 the African ancestors who crossed seas, rivers and mountains to reign in all corners of the earth.
- Subject: Mohamed Moulud Yeslem
- Rationale: <i>El Barco del Desierto</i> is a painting that I did for my project <i>The Ship of the Desert</i>. This ship has been in the Saharawi refugee camps for 34 years, some 1800 km 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 <i>The Ship of the Desert</i>. 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.
- Project: Colors of Africa
- Location: Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria
- Lead Quote: It is in the dunes, in the valleys and in the mountains. It is in the rivers and dry lakes. It is the colour of the inhabitants of the Sahara and, during sandstorms, it is also the predominant colour in the sky.
- Hex Code: 993300
- Colour Choice: Desert Journey
- Biography: Mohamed Moulud Yeslem is a Sahraoui 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.
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