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It was the middle of the day when Omar Diaw, better known by his artist name “Chimere” – French For Chimera – approached a blank wall off the main road in the Guinean capital and started spray-painting.
“They know who I am,” he said confidently. Although it was unclear who “they” were, civilians and police spared no glances as Diaw’s fellow artists unloaded dozens of paint cans on the side of the road in Conakry.
graffiti Diaw’s native home has been thriving for years senegalWhere modern urban street art first began in West Africa. But when he moved to Guinea in 2018 to seek a new place, he said such art was almost non-existent.
“It was thought the graffiti was vandalism,” he said.
To win over the public, Diaw took a gentler approach, using graffiti for public awareness campaigns. His first effort was to raise awareness about COVID-19 preventive measures.
“We had to entice the population,” he said.
The port city of Conakry is experiencing rapid urbanization. Diao’s graffiti has become an undeniable part of its crowded, concrete-heavy landscape.
His larger-than-life images of famous Guinean musicians and African independence leaders now dwarf overloaded trucks. Drying clothes hung above a portrait of West African resistance fighter Samoury Touré.
The tag of Diaw’s graffiti group, Guinea Ghetto Graff, is on graffiti throughout the city.
Graffiti as it is known today began in the 1960s and 70s United States of AmericaIt arrived in West Africa via Dakar, Senegal in 1988, when the region’s first graffiti artist, Amadou Lamine Ngom, began painting on the city’s walls.
Ngom, known by his artist name “Docta”, and a group of fellow artists were commissioned to create murals for an awareness campaign aimed at cleaning up the streets of Dakar the following year.
Ngom, 51, said that in the beginning, apart from such campaigns, he painted graffiti mostly at night. Later he changed his view.
“I decided to do it in broad daylight,” he said. “So as not to copy what is happening in the United States, Europe or elsewhere. Create graffiti that resembles the African reality, taking into account our reality, our values.”
Ngom, who later mentored the teenage Diaw, said communities have come to respect public artwork because it reflects their lives and experiences.
With public support, “the authorities had no choice,” Ngom said.
These days, graffiti has become more vocal in Senegal, becoming part of political messaging around anti-government protests. In Guinea, Diaw’s graffiti has addressed issues such as migration.
Diaw said that the governor of Conakry supports most of his actions and has given him carte blanche to do them wherever he wants.
As his latest roadside work took shape, passersby began stopping and admiring the portrait of General Mamadi Doumbouya, Guinea’s military leader who took power in a 2021 coup.
Ousmane Silla, a 22-year-old driver, said he was already familiar with Diaw’s giant painting near Conakry’s airport.
“It reminds us of the old Guinean musicians. It reminds us of history,” he said. “Graffiti is good for Africa, it’s good for this country, it’s good for everybody. I love it, and it’s changed the face of our city.”
The next step could be to bring in a wider range of artists.
“I would really like to see more women becoming part of it, because they say (graffiti) is for men,” said Mama Aissata Camara, a rare figure in Guinea’s graffiti scene.