4th BISO Biennale - Official selection
We are pleased to announce Fatim Soumaré's participation in the 4th edition of BISO Biennale in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Entitled “Unbearable Border”, the exhibition will open to the public from 20 to 24 November 2025 in the FESPACO amphitheatre in Ouagadougou.
After the first three editions, in 2019 with Dare to Invent the future, in 2021 with The Ambiguous Adventure and in 2023 with The Fire of Origins, this fourth edition called Unbearable Border places the residencies at the center of the event. 16 sculptors and visual artists of fifteen different nationalities have been selected to take part in the creative residency, which will run from 24 October to 20 November 2025 in Ouagadougou. The residencies are designed to help artists explore new techniques, and to encourage the exchange of know-how with Burkinabé craftsmen, artists and designers.
‘Flan, Flakē, Fitla*. I ask for the road’ is part of the nomadic-collaborative and trans-territorial approach of artist Fatim Soumaré’s project ‘La route des caravanes’ (The Caravan's Road) Through this journey, the artist seeks to restore indigenous African weaving practices and, through them, the lost connections across the continent. At each stage of her research, the artist collects objects, gathers stories and promotes the development of a common language: weaving. The works then become the receptacles of these encounters and learnings. The hybrid looms created in Siin, Senegal, at the Falé workshop-laboratory (a collective of 200 craftswomen founded by Fatim in 2021), reproduced in Ouagadougou by talented woodworkers, become a testament to the commitment to participatory research and the promotion of the work, stories and expertise of the creators of the craft. Each loom will be returned to its weaver at the end of the exhibition. Through this immersive work, the artist invokes the recognition of elders and the past before setting out to breathe new life, visibility and vitality into living and changing traditions.
*Traditional lamp made from shea butter and cotton fibres, respectively in Dafing and Bwamu, in Mooré, three West African languages spoken in Burkina Faso, as well as in neighbouring countries such as Mali and Ghana.
- Fatim Soumaré