Image: View of Black Rock compound, 2019. © Kehinde Wiley.

Online submissions are now being accepted for the 2020/2021 class of artists-in-residence at Black Rock Senegal, the multi-disciplinary artist program founded by artist Kehinde Wiley. The organisation is accepting applications until 31 August through its online application portal. Named for the volcanic rocks that blanket its shoreline, Black Rock was set up to incite change in the global discourse around West Africa in the context of creative evolution. Wiley says: “Black Rock stands as the direct answer to my desire to have an uncontested relationship with Africa, the filling in of a large void that I share with many African Americans. With this project I wanted to explore my own personal relationship with Africa while inviting artists to do the same.”

Image: Stubble 2011, Sonya Clark.

The residency brings together international artists to live and work in Dakar, Senegal for 1-3 month stays. Successful residents are offered room, board, and individual studio space along with the support of a language tutor to assist with English, French, and Wolof –the three primary languages of the program.

Image: You Don't Get It Do You? 2018 (detail), Heather Jones.

Textile artists Sonya Clark and Heather Jones took part in the residency program during its first year. Sonya Clark’s work draws from the legacy of crafted objects and the embodiment of skill. As an African American artist, she uses materials as wide ranging as textiles, hair, combs, and text to honour her lineage and interrogate history. Clark is a professor at Amherst College. Heather Jones is an artist whose work questions and pushes traditional conceptions of both quilt making and painting by exploring the formal possibilities of colour and design. She addresses the historical and socio-political relationship between women and textiles, and explores the relationship between gender, place, time, and culture in her work.

Visit blackrocksenegal.org for more information and to apply by 31 August.