Since November 2022, the Alliance Française de Banjul has been offering La Maison des artistes Musa Ngum, a residency that welcomes artists from all backgrounds and disciplines. Can you tell us about this project?

La Maison des artistes Musa Ngum is part of a network dynamic since the Alliance Française de Banjul depends directly on the French Embassy in Senegal and Gambia. The idea was to reinforce this dynamic of accompanying artists in the region and to support French-speaking artists by collaborating closely with local cultural ecosystems. We welcomed multi-disciplinary artists from a wide range of backgrounds, from dance to literature to the visual arts. The aim of the Maison des artistes is not only to create emulation between artists in residence, but also to work with local artists or to carry out cross-residencies. In July, we organized a residency with the Gobelins school, which invited three young creators - a French student, a Senegalese student and a Gambian student - to work together on an animated film project. Cross-residencies are something we want to do more and more between France, Gambia and other creators on the continent.

In three years, more than thirty artists have been hosted for this residency. What have been the highlights, the achievements to remember?

In December 2023, we notably had a residency with two cartoonists, Jean-Denis Pendanx and Laurent Galandon, who came to immerse themselves in Gambia. Their comic strip, Les poissons, eux, ne pleurent pas, released in May 2025 by Editions Daniel Maghen, is set in the country and talks about Gambian environmental as well as social issues. This is the first comic book to be set in Gambia, and it gave us the opportunity to discover the country and its realities. We also had a cross-residency with one of our partners, the Khorus Film Foundation, which invited Martha E. Manga, a Gambian director, Aissatou Ndiaye Gueye, a Senegalese producer, and Justine Coulmy, a French image director. Together, they made a short documentary, Serreh, about the daily life of a woman working in shared gardens in Bakau, and the challenges she encounters. And then, in July 2025, this residency with the Ecole des Gobelins: it's the first time we've done this, and it gives us a bridge with internationally renowned French cultural and educational institutions and the benefit of their expertise. We also offer support from our incubator: it's truly haute couture, and each residency has its own technical and human specificities. Our partnership with Gobelins means that we have access to professional equipment, computers, tablets and software that we don't necessarily own. It's something that offers us the opportunity to get to the heart of the matter quickly by already having a cultural angle of attack, carried by creators from the region.

What do you think of the evolution of the residency since its creation?

We created La Maison des artistes under my own steam, but it's important to remember that, despite the network's support, Gambia is a small, poorly identified country. We set out on our own to climb that mountain, that little Everest, and I really feel that we've been able to develop structuring partnerships. Our first cross-residencies were with Villa Saint-Louis Ndar in Senegal, which enabled us to welcome Senegalese dancer Amadou Diop in May 2025. This is an artist who was recommended to us by Villa Saint-Louis Ndar, who has already been supported and who will be leaving for a residency in France at the Centre national de la danse, so it's an opportunity to work as part of a network and to have long-term support for the same artist. It's also had a major impact on the Alliance team: I had completely underestimated the power of such a tool, particularly in terms of image and promotion. Each department has its own missions, but we work across the board, trying to involve everyone according to their artistic field. At the same time, we've also become more professional. We provide highly personalized support, and our skills have grown in terms of our ability to respond to requests in ever finer detail, working across disciplines so that artists can feed off each other during their residencies. Finally, we've also been able to sharpen our weapons with regard to family residencies. When I built La Maison des Artistes, I wanted to welcome artists as a family, in particular to facilitate the mobility of female artists, and this requires a whole range of logistics. We've managed to refine our tools and welcome them in an increasingly specialized way, which has brought us a very interesting energy.

With a new call for applications planned for 2026, what are the challenges for the next edition?

This is the first time a call for applications is going to be launched. The idea is to be able to open up more and make our residency better known, because until now, I've been the one contacting artists or managing to get contacts through institutions. It's also a question of supporting the change of management, since I'm leaving at the end of August, so I can give the future management an additional tool and have a large number of applications. It's a huge research job to find artists who may have an interest and an interesting approach for Gambia, so the two challenges remain visibility and supporting the new management in a new dynamic. There is also the challenge of developing with Villa Saint-Louis Ndar a coastal network on the West African coast, notably between Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia, which will be piloted by Villa Saint-Louis Ndar. The partnership with Amadou Diop, as well as the residency planned for December with the Fondation Culture et Diversité around design and weaving, are there to lay the first stones of the edifice of this network.

It's exciting to address issues of cultural and linguistic cooperation and innovation in a field that is itself very rich culturally and linguistically.

You've just completed your mission at the head of the Alliance Française de Banjul, in Gambia, which you've been running since September 2021. What do you remember of these four years?

This is my fourth Alliance, my third on the African continent, but my first directorship, and I've found it a stimulating position. For me, what's particularly interesting about the Alliances Françaises model is the idea of dealing with associations governed by local law. There's a great deal of meticulous, highly specialized and strategic work to be done to meet the expectations and different functioning of a board of directors. It's also exciting to be able to respond to the challenges of cultural and linguistic cooperation and innovation in an area that is itself very rich culturally and linguistically. I found it very interesting to be able to take on missions through a local team, which is extremely dedicated and has been working here for 10 or 20 years, while bringing its own vision and drawing on the strategic guidelines of the Board of Directors and the Embassy. Having a working tool such as the Alliance Française de Banjul is quite invaluable because, at the end of the day, it remains a medium-sized Alliance, a village, where the main challenge is to ensure that each entity can build its missions while having a complementary approach between the different departments. The main challenge is thus to bring to life a third place, which has different emulations, different calendar realities, by orchestrating these different components and ensuring that there is an overall vision and a common impetus.

Learn more about La maison des artistes Musa Ngum