Programme

From May 2 to 13, the Republic of Senegal hosted the first overseas art session of the Innopraktika & Russian Seasons School. The preparations for the session’s launch had been underway since last year. The School was founded by the Innopraktika company and the Russian Seasons cultural project.

Sixteen talented painters and sculptors from seven African countries were selected from more than 100 applications. Students from the Republic of Cameroon, Republic of Guinea, Republic of Burundi, Republic of Senegal, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo came to Dakar, the capital of Senegal, to create artworks on a given topic under the responsive guidance of four teachers from the Ilya Repin St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts.

The course took place at the Place du Souvenir Africain, a large cultural cluster on the Atlantic coast, supported by the École Nationale des Arts et Métiers de la Culture (the National School of Arts and Crafts in Dakar). The course began with sprint sketches from nature. Young artist, sculptors and their mentors acted as models, and the task of the rest of the students was to catch the basic movements, pose and character of the model in 8 minutes. Preparing final qualification works was the second stage of training. Participants were working on an art piece for two weeks, reflecting on the session’s topic: “Creativity Unites: Preserving Global Values.” The session concluded with a qualification work presented at the exhibition in Dakar.