This African City Is Now a Global Art Hotspot-With Dynamic Galleries, Cutting-Edge Fashion, and a Major Biennale

""This is all the result of a dream," Mouhamed Seyni Guèye, the imam of Dakar's Mosque of the Divinity, told me as we walked its grounds. One night in 1973, Guèye dreamed of a grand mosque set on a beach. Believing this to be a prophecy, he commissioned architect Cheikh Ngom to design the building. More than two decades later, in 1997, his dream was finally realized."

"I gazed up at the mosque, its green-domed minarets soaring some 150 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, its façade punctuated by rows of green-and-red-trimmed geometric windows. The mosque was an architectural wonder that, as I would discover over the course of my weeklong trip, captured so many of Dakar's characteristics: it was reverent and imaginative, a symbiosis of art and religion."

"In Dakar, the capital of a country where 97 percent of the population identifies as Muslim, I found a palpable connection between spirituality and creativity. I visited in June, during Eid al-Adha, the Islamic holiday known in West Africa as Tabaski. In addition to the religious celebration, which was in full swing, the city was alive with art. "Dakar's soul really is tethered to the practice of art," said Cherif Mbodji, a Dakar-born restaurateur who lives in Houston, where I'm from."

An imam's vision in 1973 led to commissioning and completion in 1997 of a grand seaside mosque with green-domed minarets rising about 150 feet and a façade of green-and-red-trimmed geometric windows. The mosque combines reverence and imagination, exemplifying a symbiosis of art and religion in Dakar. The country's population is overwhelmingly Muslim, and public life and festivities such as Eid al-Adha (Tabaski) animate the city alongside active artistic production. Local artists reinterpret traditions and address politics, relationships, and identity through their work. Galleries, beaches, and emerging arts neighborhoods contribute to Dakar's vibrant creative landscape.

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