SARAH HICKSON

In August - firmly back in the UK for a couple of months - I made a couple of trips to the English seaside. Both in Kent - firstly Whitstable, and then Margate.

The Malian artist and designer Aboubakar Fofana works with indigo. He creates sublime hand-woven textiles using the most subtle hues - from the palest baby blue, to inky midnight. His work will be exhibited in two shows at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester in 2012. This photo is an example of his calligraphy. 

July is the very beginning of the rainy season in Bamako - and from my 2nd floor balcony in Faso Kanu I witnessed some dramatic storms - the darkening sky, ferocious winds whisking up the dust, followed by spectacular thunder and lightening and finally the torrential rain, rapidly flooding the streets.

I worked as a consultant to the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester in May and June on their forthcoming West African exhibition ‘We Face Forward’. The consultancy took me to Dakar in Senegal for the first time. After the formal business of meetings and visits, I had time to visit the thriving fish market on the beach. This guy was certainly one of the more dominant personalities I met there.

May was the month of the world premiere of Je m’appelle Fanta Kaba - at the Festival Extra-11 in the pretty town of Annecy, France. This was my opportunity to complete the images for an exhibition of photographs inspired by the development of the piece and the character of Fanta Kaba. 

You can watch a short interview with Kettly Noel about her new work here - made by dancetechtv during the Extra-11 festival.

The South African choreographer, Nelisiwe Xaba worked with Kettly on the development of her piece - as an ‘external eye’. In a break between rehearsals I took some publicity shots of Neli.

In May I made my first visit to Naples with friends Patrick and Marie. This picture was taken in the macabre cloisters of the Certosa di San Martino (St. Martin’s Charterhouse).

In April I took my 7-year old nephew Xander to Paris for a few days. Just him and me. He had clearly done his research and on the Eurostar presented me with a comprehensive list of “Things I’d like to do in Paris” - ranging from the Eiffel Tower and the Mona Lisa to ‘eating a French croissant in a cafe’.

These giant bubbles near the Louvre captivated us both for a good while.  As did the acrobatic footballer hanging off lamposts at the foot of the Sacré-Coeur.

A residency at the arts centre Le Quartz in Brest, Brittany, with the choreographer Kettly Noel and costume designer Sahar Freemantle was an opportunity to develop the project Je m’appelle Fanta Kaba and present some work-in-progress performances as part of the Festival Anticodes 2011.

This is a publicity shot I took of Kettly Noel which was used by Le Quartz for their Anticodes 2011 festival poster:

In February I started working with the choreographer Kettly Noel and costume designer Sahar Freemantle on the development of Kettly Noel’s new solo work, Je m’appelle Fanta Kaba. During the first couple of weeks of intensive workshops at Donko Seko in Bamako we explored ideas, textiles, visual images, moods and music. This is Sahar at work with samples of fabric.

Traditional Dogon masked dancers on stilts made a colourful impact at the Festival sur le Niger in Segou, Mali in February. This year’s festival (the 8th edition) takes place from 15 - 19 February 2012. The artistic line-up and details of tickets, accommodation etc are all on the festival’s website here.