| Duration: | 3 Hour(s) - 0 Minute(s) |
| Tour Category: | Half Day Tour |
Senghor Museum: From Literature to Art.
Half-day, to visit the Senghor Museum located on the West Corniche.
Nicknamed the “Teeth of the Sea” by its former owner, Léopold Sédar Senghor's house was converted into a museum in 2014.
He lived there with his wife Colette, after his presidential mandate in 1981
Léopold Sédar Senghor was born in 1906 in Joal, Senegal, and died in 2001 in Verson, France,
He is a French statesman, then Senegalese, poet, writer, and first president of the Republic of Senegal (1960-1980).
He was also the first African to sit at the French Academy and professor of French at the Lycée Descartes in Tours.
It is the symbol of cooperation between France and its former colonies for its supporters, or French neocolonialism in Africa for its detractors.
His poetry, based on the song of the incantatory word, is built on the hope of creating a Civilization of the Universal, bringing together traditions beyond their differences.
In addition, he deepens the concept of negritude, a notion introduced by Aimé Césaire who defines it as follows: “Negritude is the simple recognition of being black, and the acceptance of this fact, of our destiny as Black, of our history and our culture."
We will cross the front door, to dive into the intimacy of the president-poet, from the reception room to the "pink salon" where he receives his guests.
The spacious living rooms with high ceilings open through large bay windows onto large asymmetrical terraces. The plan of the deconstructed house, according to the principle of asymmetric parallelism, is an alliance of African (especially Malian) and Western influences. Some facades are made up of large vertical panels with sharp lines in the form of triangles.
Hence the nickname "The Teeth of the Sea" was given to the house, of the film by Steven Spielberg released in 1975. In 1966, the World Festival of Negro Arts, organized at the initiative of the journal Présence Africaine and the African Culture Society by Léopold Sédar Senghor, was an unprecedented event in the cultural history of the African continent
This first festival has now produced its fruits: the erection of the Museum of Black Civilizations.
With the curator of the House, we will follow the tracks of the poet President of Joal in Dakar as well as his life in Normandy.
