It requires very little water and actually benefits the soil, this indigenous cotton has it all. Artist Fatim Soumaré is bringing it back to life.
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00:01The spirit that protects the house.
00:03That's the name of this crocheted sculpture
00:05that exhibited at the Dakar Art Biennale in late 2024.
00:10It's the work of artist Fatim Soumare
00:12and women from five Senegalese villages.
00:20Hundreds of hands were involved in weaving and crocheting this work.
00:24That is what gives it its scale and impact.
00:27The idea is that visitors can step under the installation
00:31to engage in a dialogue with the space and with the installation.
00:41We traveled to the place where the sculpture was made,
00:44around 150 kilometers south of Senegal's capital.
00:48The Sinsaloum Delta is a vast labyrinth of water channels and islands.
00:52In the village of Marloj, women have been spinning
00:56a locally grown cotton for generations.
00:58The traditional Fale thread is made by hand.
01:01Fatim Soumare has revived this almost forgotten craft.
01:06She founded the Fale collective providing new equipment,
01:09including so-called eshevadours,
01:11to straighten and wind the thread into bundles once it's been spun.
01:16The women earn the equivalent of 10 euros by spinning one kg of cotton.
01:20This work feeds us and our children.
01:27Even if it's just for water, it helps us survive.
01:30I want this work to continue.
01:35This is the end product that we receive in the workshop
01:42when we go to the village to collect these materials.
01:45These are magnificent textiles,
01:47and as you can see, they vary depending on the hand that spun it.
01:51In the Sinsaloum Delta, the plant grows in salty soil where it's able to thrive.
02:03The wild cotton requires no artificial irrigation,
02:06no fertilizer or chemicals.
02:09Unlike industrial cotton, which grows in monocultures
02:11and devours vast amounts of water,
02:13this plant has adapted to the harsh climate.
02:20This cotton has been here since the time of our ancestors.
02:24When I was young, our parents took us to the fields to harvest it.
02:27Our grandfathers taught us how to pick the cotton.
02:31They then softened it with tools and spun it into a thread,
02:34which they wove into a loincloth.
02:36These loincloths are used for traditional weddings, circumcisions,
02:40and accompany our dead to their final resting place.
02:47The wild cotton is studied at the University of Sheikh Anta Diop in Dakar.
02:52Plant biologist Mustafa Sagna says the species reproduces
02:55by creating fibers that envelop the seeds,
02:58ensuring they're carried away by the wind or passing animals.
03:03In fact, when any species produces fiber,
03:08that fiber is primarily meant for the purpose of survival.
03:13Of course, we use it for other purposes,
03:16but this fiber is basically what allows the species
03:19to spread in its natural environment.
03:25The women are now trying to plant the wild cotton near their villages.
03:29The yarn is processed in the Fele Cooperative Studio.
03:32The carpets, cushions, and other pieces designed here
03:35are not yet made entirely from the hand-spun organic cotton.
03:40Harvesting Fele on the remote islands is laborious and expensive.
03:44Its role of Fele yarn involves a lot of work by hand.
03:51As yet, we can't harvest enough fibers from this cotton plant
03:54to use it for our creations fully.
03:56But little by little we are making progress.
04:02We now have a few hand-spun spools of brown cotton.
04:05The wild cotton offers another advantage.
04:15It makes the soil more fertile.
04:17In 2023, women from the Fele Cooperative started an experiment.
04:22They planted 200 seedlings on three hectares of salt-encrusted land.
04:26Only a few survived, but the impact was huge.
04:29For the first time in decades, they were able to grow rice there again.
04:33Now unusually tall wild grass has taken over the fields.
04:37This was a deserted area with very salty soil.
04:45We started by watering the land and planting small cotton seedlings,
04:49which we were told would help reduce the salinity levels.
04:53As the soil improved, we planted rice.
04:56Now, thanks to God, the salt levels have dropped significantly.
05:00Fatim Sumara has always loved textiles.
05:06Her mother used to dye fabrics for a living.
05:08Today, she's weaving a new sculpture, and not just with any yarn.
05:14I know where it comes from.
05:16I know its story.
05:18The story of the one who spun it.
05:21I'm carrying on this tradition, weaving myself into a collective practice.
05:25With every thread, she continues the history of the Falet textile craftswoman,
05:31the legacy of thousands of hands.