Fatou Dravé

*Fatou comes from Tiohtià:ke/Montreal and from Bamako, from a moving point between the two, somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

Step by step, she traces her path over the water, the land, leaving behind her a trail of red dust. Fatou goes to meet past and future generations and, above all, to meet the people on her way.

Face to face, she listens to their heartbeats, deciphers their gestures, memorizes the reflections in their eyes. She learns, shares what resonates.

Heart to heart, she offers them a wooden bead, then ties one around her wrist. Carving masks, yellow bead. Weaving threads, grey bead. Building sounds, blue bead. Singing without words, green bead.

Bead by bead, she continues on her way, moving according to the spots of light under her eyelids when she wakes up. Fatou seeks, perhaps, to perceive the multiple fullnesses that fill her planet.*

Fatou Dravé completed the Master in Space and Communication at HEAD after a Bachelor in Graphic Design at Laval University. She creates narrative environments through image, sound and textile, exploring through writing and design issues related to her diasporic heritage. She considers the use of non-linear fiction as an act of preservation. Her diploma project, an installation in the form of Afrofuturist fragments entitled I’m out of this world, I’ve left a universe tells the story of a time traveller working to construct her own archive. She plans to use her time at L’Abri to produce VOLUME I, winner of the 2020 Hans Wilsdorf Foundation Excellence Award and an extension of her degree project. Perpetuating the tradition of oral narration omnipresent on the African continent, VOLUME I collects the story of this time traveller through a series of sound pieces pressed on vinyl in view of collective listening sessions.