La Pose, 2014.
About:
While his family originates from Burkina Faso, Siaka Traoré Soppo was born in Douala and spent most of his upbringing in Togo, where he developed formal techniques in drawing and painting. Today, he navigates the creative scene in Senegal as a street photographer. Heavily influenced, as well as involved in hip-hop performance and capoeira, Traoré Soppo documents the rising, yet largely unacknowledged, Senegalese scene of urban street performance.
With a background in civil engineering, Traoré Soppo migrated to photographic practices in 2011, initially working as an autodidact, then instinctual documenter of impromptu performance activity, movement, and the urban environment. His works have been exhibited at several locations in Dakar and further afield. In 2014, his photographic series SUNU Street was included in an exhibition organised by Galerie Atiss Dakar and Maison Carpe Diem at Maison d’Aissa Dione, as part of Dak’Art OFF, a satellite programme that runs concurrently with Dak’Art, the Biennale of Contemporary African Art in Dakar. Copyright: Siaka Traoré Soppo. (text 1:54)