00:07Mali's most exciting young artist doesn't paint on canvas, he paints on trash.
00:19Its ability of being able to carry these messages interests me in my way of telling stories.
00:26Meet Ibrahim Kebe. His work is a fight for identity in a country where memory feels fragile.
00:36For young Malians today, the challenge isn't just instability, it's remembering who we are without losing who we are becoming.
00:46So at 29, Ibrahim's art carries a hundred years of memory, but none of it started in a fancy art
00:54school.
00:54It all started at his fellow's workshop.
00:59It's mainly the fact that my father is someone who, in his way of doing things, of working, especially with
01:06the drawing, influenced me.
01:11And that influence isn't incurred in a single memory.
01:16Actually, I heard the sound of the machine in the workshop, the sound of the cutting, and the moment when
01:22he was very deeply immersed in drawing.
01:26And it's especially the fact that, through his way of doing things, he showed me that you can make art
01:33from everyday life.
01:36And that's what influenced me most.
01:39Lately, Ibrahim has been calling on Mali's oldest truth-tellers, the Kore Duga.
01:47Because they have this ability to speak very profound truths, often very bluntly, mostly with irony, but generally very bluntly.
02:01Bulllap offers me many more possibilities because Bulllap has this ability to absorb, to keep traces, and also to be
02:11able to carry.
02:13For example, when I put a cleric on it, it's able to carry this form of engraving on the canvas.
02:24It's ability of being able to carry these messages interest me in my way of telling stories.
02:33Ibrahim's work speaks to people in their twenties and thirties across Africa, navigating questions of identity without a clean map.
02:45There's more and more of enthusiasm, especially from our generation towards our culture, our heritage, and we are in full
02:54phase of transformation.
02:55And that is what really interests me, a work where we try to evolve, we try to reincarnate all these
03:03traditions that we have inherited.
03:06And we try to go into the depths of the knowledge of these things.
03:13Ibrahim has been taking his art across oceans and cities, from Lesbon to Cape Town,
03:20helping young people trying to figure out what heritage means when it's been interrupted.
03:27Cape Town is very important to me for several reasons.
03:31The first thing is that it's primarily a place where African artists meet among themselves,
03:39but also between African artists and the rest of the world.
03:43It's not just about visibility. It's about the fact that these encounters foster dialogue.
03:52A dialogue between artists, a dialogue between cultures, and that aspect interests me greatly.
03:59It's a platform that allows me to speak to an audience that knows me well and is familiar with my
04:07word,
04:08or potentially to engage with a different audience from elsewhere.
04:15Ibrahim Bemba Kebe picks up what the market throws out and makes something that lasts.
04:23He is already asking the questions his generation will spend the rest of their lives trying to answer.
04:32Okay, we are right there.
04:33The book is The King that has been using the books on the์ and by the name of the book.
04:34The book of The King is The King is the King.
04:36The King is the King.
