The Passport to Paradise gallery highlights the bold, visual images found all over Dakar by focusing upon the urban visual culture of the Mourides, a Senegalese Sufi movement centered upon the life and teachings of a local saint named Sheikh Amadou Bamba.

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Glass Painting of Two Women in a Room with a Photo of the Saint
Description: Mouride women often lead very pious lives, and even in relaxed moments, images of Amadou Bamba bless them. In this glass painting, a woman is depicted having her hair arranged into one of the attractive coiffures for which Senegalese women are so justly famous. The stylist’s room is humble, yet graced by a portrait of Amadou Bamba on the wall. Incense burns, talismans hang from hooks, and a trunk full of clothing is hidden under the bed. The client relaxes and fans herself while chewing on a toothbrush stick and listening to the transister radio on the floor beside her.
Publication Date: Publication Date Unknown
AODL Contributing Partner: Passport to Paradise
Copyright: Images and text courtesy of the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, and Drs. Mary Nooter Roberts (Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Fowler) and Allen F. Roberts (Professor, UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures and Director, James S. Coleman African Studies Center).
Author: Author Unknown
Interviewer: Interviewer Unknown

Sampling from L'Institut Fondemental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN)

Phil Curtin Collection

Collection Boubacar Barry

Collection Charles Becker: Recherches et documents sur le Sida

Photographs from “Passport to Paradise’: Sufi Arts of Senegal and Beyond

Mosques of Bondoukou

Futa Toro, Senegal and Mauritania

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