Just off the coast of Senegal and the western-most point of Africa is Gorée Island. For over 300 years, it served as one of the largest slave-trading centers for the Atlantic Slave Trade. For the slave traders, it was an ideal location to hold their captives due to the island’s tiny size (just 45 acres) and is surrounded by deep waters, so it was hard to escape. For the millions of Africans captured and sold to the west, their time on this island was the last time their feet would touch their homeland. 

Today, it is a UNESCO-designated World Heritage site and a grim reminder of the horrific past that the peoples of Africa endured at the hands of European colonizers. This month we are at Dak'Art celebrating African Contemporary art at the Dakar Biennale, a major international event for the promotion and enhancement of modern cultural heritage in Africa. The Biennale is held at the old Dakar Supreme Court building that has been converted into the home of the Biennale on La Pointe de Sangomar. La Pointe de Sangomar was the last piece of land on the Continent that our enslaved/captured ancestors saw before being dispersed all over the West.