CULTURE
BURKINA FASO – Warren B. SARÉ the man who gives life to the Senegalese Tirailleurs through photography
Warren B. SARÉ is a freelance photographer, President of the Photographic Center of Ouagadougou created in 2010 and initiator of African networks of creative photography. He has been involved in photography since childhood in his village in Béguédo, Burkina Faso, the country of the “Men of Integrity”, that of our late African hero, Thomas Isidore Sankara. From Bobo Dioulasso to Bamako, then Cotonou and Dakar, Warren took the time to meet these men loaded with colonial history, they who were at the front, delivered like cannon fodder to wage wars of which they were largely unaware of the causes and consequences. These men, some of whom were shot at Thiaroye in 1944 because they were simply asking for their salary, their due. Warren, he is the one who has the eye, the detail, the prediction of the objective to say forever that the Senegalese Tirailleurs will be immortal forever. Warren, he is also the one who has had international recognition thanks to his work of investigation, awareness and information, his work has been exhibited not only in the African capitals but also in Brussels and Paris. Ze-africanews went to meet this historical monument of photography in Burkina Faso for this exclusive interview.
Ze-africanews : How did you get to photography?
Warren B. SARÉ: I’ve been in photography since childhood. Very small as all the children of the village in his time in Béguédo, I discovered the photo at the age of 13 in the market of my village while I sold loincloths and dishes to women, on market days. And so I knew a gentleman called Boukaré, a photographer from Tenkodogo who unfortunately is no longer in this world to see the fruit of his teaching but he must be proud of me from where he is, He came every day from the market to take pictures in my village of Béguédo. So much so that I admired what he was doing, at one point I couldn’t even sell my items since I spent most of my time watching Boukaré take pictures. That’s how I once asked him if he could teach me how to take pictures. He said no because he couldn’t pay me at the raid. I told him that this is not what I was looking for but that I wanted to learn the profession of photography. A few days later, I left again to watch him photograph. And his scenery fell, I brought him a hand. And he said, “You really want to be a photographer”. That’s how he responded favourably to the request. And that’s how my apprenticeship with him began. I spent a year with him and then we split up because he had strategies I didn’t marry. The motive of our separation is that when he was short of money, he would come and photograph people with a camera without film. He would take the advance payments and come back later and tell them it was toast. Then one day, without my knowledge, he sent me a Yashica 6×6 camera without film to take pictures of people. But he didn’t come that day. So I decided on my own initiative to go and photograph people in two other villages. I took the advance payment and borrowed my father’s bike to give it to him 45 km from home. When I came home with the money and the camera, he said, “Oh, Warren, I forgot to put the film in the camera”.
Ze-africanews: What did you do next?
Warren B. SARÉ: I went back to the village crying because I didn’t know how to find these people photographed and I didn’t know what to tell them either. My dead mother comforted me and then sold one of my goats. She said: “My son takes this money and goes to one of the big cities to become a photographer”. I went to Ouagadougou where I had no knowledge and I also did not understand the local language in this case Mooré. In my daily activities, I met the Koranic students who speak my mother tongue, which is Bissa. I followed them, arrived at their master’s, my surprise was great. He recognized me because he was the friend of my late father. And it was at his house that my father wanted to send me to learn the Koran. I joined the group at the same time. And I became his pupil. But I did not give up my vocation. I did small jobs such as washing dishes at small restaurants in the mornings and in the evenings helping a coffee salesman to wash his glasses. I found time to deliver barrels of water to a family. I did it twice a day. Very quickly I integrated myself into society. I was this Koranic student who had a little money on him and who wore nice clothes.
Ze-africanews: What was your goal?
Warren B. SARÉ: My goal was to save for a camera. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it. When I finished reading the Koran, I went back to the village. And my father was so proud of me. His wish was fulfilled. As for my mother, she was not completely satisfied because I did not come with a camera. So I headed for Côte d’Ivoire. When he arrived at my uncle’s house in 1987, he asked me to go into the cocoa fields. I told him that I came to photograph and not to work in the fields otherwise I would stay in the village. I started selling bags at the Adjamé market and eggs in Williams City. Then one day, I met a photographer who had a studio, he tested me and decided to keep me as his assistant. I did two and a half years, and I still couldn’t get my own camera, so I decided to come back. I took up my small jobs as a commercial employee in a bleach sales company called Fare Faso. Afterwards, I joined a photo studio called freedom Production which belonged to Mr.Bado L. Mathurin. Then one day a gentleman by the name of Lucien Rebuffel, who had offered a school in the village of Bah, located on the border with Mali, and who was coming for the inauguration, asked our studio to come and do the report. I was chosen for this job. When he saw the way I worked, he was very happy. At the end of the report, he approached me and offered me two gifts. One was to take me with him to France, the other to propose what I wanted. I told him I wanted a camera. Three months later, he sent me my camera at the French embassy in Ouagadougou. And that’s where my photographic career begins as an independent photographer.
Ze-africanews : Was Malick Sidibé one of the people who gave you advice? Who was Malick Sidibé?
Warren B. SARÉ: He was a father to me because every time I went to Bamako, he received me in his studio and gave advice. A family bond was born between father and son. Then one day, he told me: “Warren you love photography more than me. ‘Except I was lucky to be discovered by someone who made me public more than you.’ He asked me how I came to Bamako, I told him that I financed my trips. He was a true humanist. In 2010, when I organized an international meeting of photography in my center in partnership with Contrast Bruxel under the sponsorship of Malick Sidibé, I inform my partners and acquaintances of his arrival, they suggested to me that he would not come. And he, despite his state of health, had given me the assurance of his coming and he honored his commitment. He told me that he would have liked me to be his son to succeed him in his studio in Bamako. When I learned of his disappearance it was a shock to me but no one escapes the laws of nature. He left a void in the world of photography. My dream is to organize one day an African photographic event in tribute to Malick Sidibé in Bamako to immortalize it. And why not a Malick Sidibé photographic center in Bamako one day?
Ze-africanews: What does it take to be a good photographer?
Warren B. SARÉ: To be a good photographer for me, you have to feel the pleasure of being a photographer first.
Ze-africanews: For you photography, what is it?
Warren B. SARÉ: Photography is an art like other arts but its particularity is that it allows us to discover ourselves and remain immortal.Photography for me is also having the need and the feeling of transmitting. Being a photographer means witnessing one’s time and this image must be immortalized, shared.Being a photographer is like being a writer. It is also a normal activity like any other. It is a means of meeting and sharing experiences. It is also a way to give and receive and to make oneself useful. The photographer allows one to immortalize oneself.
Ze-africanews: Tell us about the Ouagadougou Photography Center?
Warren B. SARÉ: The Photographic Center of Ouagadougou was born in 2010 during my various trips to Bamako for the African biennial of photography of Bamako. From the observation made in Bamako in the world of photography, back home after having made the state of the situation, I immediately felt the need to have a framework of encounter and exchange of photography. It is above all a question of sharing the experience I received from my trips to Bamako with those who did not have the chance to be there. I have known characters with photographic studios but they have never organized frameworks for exchanges and sharing of their experiences in this field. They kept them in them. I wanted to put an end to that. I told myself that we can and must share our experience because it allows us to learn more. In 2010 the Centre Photographique de Ouagadougou organized an international workshop on Africa-Europe photography and a West African workshop on photography in partnership with the Goethe Institute. In 2011, he organized a second West African workshop with the Goethe Institute and a Ouaga-Bamako Image Caravan; Bamako-Ouaga for two weeks. In 2013, the Ouagadougou Photographic Centre was officially inaugurated in partnership with the Goethe Institute. In 2014, we organized two workshops at the French Institute of Ouagadougou, one with the students of the Beaux de Beyrouth and the photographers of the center and the second on the landscape.Since the end of 2014, the center has struggled to insure these charges because they are all supported by Warren SARÉ. And the Covid-19 pandemic has made it more difficult. Since 2014, the center is looking for a reliable partner to support it in its noble approach.
Ze-africanews: “The Last Map”? What is it? Tell us about this major project?
Warren B. SARÉ: The “Last Card” is first about the history of my family. In 1981 when I went back to the village, I borrowed a camera to interview my grandfather. I wanted to know his story. And that’s when he told me about Veterans Affairs in general and my great-grandfather in particular who was forced into the French army but never came back. So this return to the source allowed me to know the history of my family. It gave me a photographic signature. The last map is the map of the fighters that each of them holds and which links him to France.
Ze-africanews: Why focus on the “Senegalese Tirailleurs”?
Warren B. SARÉ: In 1985 when my grandfather passed away, I decided to continue sharing the story he told me about the Tirailleurs. That’s how I started to meet those of them who had participated in the Second World War and that of Algeria and who were still living. I was able to make moving encounters. And when I meet them for the first time, they see me as a liberator and as someone who brings them the recognition they were waiting for. At one point, I was afraid and I almost stopped questioning the Senegalese riflemen because every time I met one of their riflemen, two or three days later, his children called me to announce his death. But I told myself that they were waiting for my visit to free themselves and share their stories with future generations. And every time I made an effort to offer a giant portrait of them to their families so that they could remember them after their death. From 1996 to 1997, I visited Niger and Benin respectively. In 1998, for the first time, I received a grant from Africalia which allowed me to visit some countries in West Africa such as Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Guinea Conakry and Togo.
Ze-africanews: What did this project “The Last Map”, make you discover concretely, taught you?
Warren B. SARÉ: This project allowed me to have wisdom through the different advice I received from my meetings with Veterans Affairs. It allowed me to learn their history, our history. It allowed me to discover myself and make myself public and visible.
Ze-africanews: You have had international recognition for your work, which countries have your photos been exhibited in?
Warren B. SARÉ: In 2013 I exhibited in Brussels during the Festival Regards Croisés.In 2014, I did an exhibition at the French Institute in Ouagadougou. My photos were exhibited in France at the Angoulême Museum on the occasion of the EMOI Photographic Festival in 2017. I exhibited at the France photographique festival in Lyle. In early 2020, I exhibited in Belgium. In 2018, I presented a 12-minute documentary film about the Senegalese Tirailleurs at La Francophonie headquarters in New York.
Ze-africanews: How do you feel about this recognition?
Warren B. SARÉ: It is a feeling of pride and gratitude and a call to do better.
Ze-africanews: How can you call your photography: a historical photograph? A committed photograph?
Warren B. SARÉ: It’s a historical and memory photograph.
Ze-africanews: What are your next projects?
Warren B. SARÉ: My next project is in the footsteps of traditional hunters called Dozo and also on mixed couples. I have at my disposal several testimonies filmed on the Senegalese Tirailleurs in Africa and France whose support I expect for the editing.
Ze-africanews: Do you have a message to send?
Warren B. SARÉ: My message is addressed to the African Heads of State, especially francophones. Given that in our speeches we usually say that they copy France, I would like them to copy to the letter the speech of the French Head of State Emmanuel Macron when he announces his intention to rename roads and certain species on behalf of Veterans Affairs. Let them do that to the letter by renaming our roads and spaces on behalf of Veterans Affairs. My dearest dream is to have a museum called the Museum of Recognition outside the barracks where the works will be preserved and all those who worked around the theme of the Senegalese Tirailleurs.
CINEMA
BURKINA FASO – Culture and tourism: The 4th edition of Tunnel honors the builders of the shadow
Koudougou, May 31, 2025 (AIB) – The 4th edition of Tunnel, a ceremony for distinguishing cultural and tourist actors in the Central-West region, was held in Koudougou on Saturday, noted the AIB on site.
This annual event, initiated by Adama Badiel, aims to create, according to him, a platform of visibility and support for artists and tourism professionals to allow them to establish themselves on national and international scenes.
The promoter Adama Badiel stressed the importance of this edition, placed under the sign of collaboration, recognition and collective construction. He recalled the fundamental objective of the Tunnel: “to highlight the cultural and tourist talents of the Center-West, these women and men who, often without spotlight or support, nourish our region with their passion, creativity, and determination.”
This year, the event paid a special tribute to its partners, whose support is deemed indispensable. Among the officials present were Jean Noël Bonkoungou, representing the minister of culture, patron of the ceremony, El Hadj Inoussa Bagué, president of the Patronat du Centre-Ouest, Franck Alain Kaboré, CEO of Cinéma Neerwaya, and Ali Bonkoungou, CEO of Salsabil Bâtiment, testifying to the commitment of the private and public sectors.
Despite a slight reduction to five categories in competition this year, due to a limited number of album releases and works meeting the criteria, Adama Badiel ensured that the “Golden Tunnel” category will evolve from next year to expand opportunities while maintaining the quality requirement.
The promoter also launched a call for goodwill because, “we need you to build a true ecosystem where art, heritage, tourism and youth can express themselves, thrive and inspire.” This heartfelt plea highlights the major challenge of the lack of resources to fully support the laureates and optimize their visibility.
Several emblematic figures of Burkinabe cinema, such as Eugène Bayala (Oyou), Sawadogo Alidou (head of the Village of Kikideni), and Rasmané Ouédraogo (Razo), have already been honored in previous editions.
This year, the winners on the artistic side include Mr. Baraka, Tasha, Yololo Junior, and KSB 80.
In the cultural and tourist field, personalities like El Hadj Inoussa Bagué, Franck Alain Kaboré, Rasmané Ouédraogo, Boubacar Berewoudougou (Hôtel Pousga), Catherine Zoma (ISMK), and Salfo Dermé were distinguished, in addition to tributes paid to ancient glories of Burkinabe music such as Pasteur Moussa Josué.
Adama Badiel concluded by stating that “the Tunnel is not a one-time event. It is a movement, an ambition, a bridge between what we are and what we can become. A strong message for the future of culture and tourism in the Center-West.
The boss’s representative, Jean Noël Bonkoungou, reassured the promoter of Tunnel of the support of the ministry.
Source: Information Agency of Burkina
Photo credit: Information Agency of Burkina
See on the platforms the legendary Senegalese hip-hop group Daara J Family. On May 30, 2025, the band returns with “COSAAN”, a committed single that resonates, with its morning mbalax melodies and gentle flows, as an essential reminder: never forget where you come from. The single has over 80,000 views and 900 comments on YouTube.
“Fan nga cosaanoo?” – Where are your roots?
This question in wolof, almost a supplication, serves as the thread to the new title of Daara J Family. NAACP literally means “origin” or “heritage”. With this single, the iconic duo formed by Faada Freddy and Ndongo D delivers a work that is at once poetic, political and deeply rooted in history, especially that of Senegal. It is also a call to African youth not to forget their origins. And above all to enhance its cultural heritage by walking with pride in the footsteps of the ancients.
Cosaan, between mbalax and rap
Formed in 1994, while still in high school, the members of Daara J Family never gave up their musical identity. Indeed, they have always mixed sharp words, spirituality and pan-African consciousness. In “COSAAN”, they revisit this tradition that is dear to them. In this song, there are traditional sounds (mbalax) and contemporary hip-hop textures, echoing their long-standing belief: rap was born in Africa, traveled, then came back. The refrain, translated into French, is unequivocal: “Le monde et ce qu’il contient / Si tu vas là et que tu l’obtiens / N’oublie pas, n’oublie pas / This is where your origin lies!” A direct appeal to African youth not to give in to cultural amnesia and to keep the memory of ancestors and African identity alive.
When history inhabits the word
Faada Freddy, with his recognizable soul voice among a thousand, hums: “We know where we come from/ What worries us is where we are going…” This lucid concern can only be tempered by an unwavering faith in the values of the elders. Ndongo D, adds in a quick flow: “If you forget yesterday, tomorrow you will be lost (…) You were born here, you come from here, you live here.” It is an anchor cry, a response to uprooting, a warning against forgetting.
Daara J Family: Making sense of the flow
From their first eponymous album in 1998 to Boomerang in 2003 — hailed as one of the best hip-hop albums of the century by The Observer — to Yaamatele in 2020, Daara J Family have always been able to combine the art of flow with that of meaning. Their commitment goes beyond words. They shared the stage with icons such as Public Enemy or Mos Def, and travelled through festivals from Africa to Europe, from WOMAD to Live 8.
COSAAN: a single dedicated to transmission
More than a return, COSAAN is a transmission. It is a manifesto. That of a knowledge, a duty to remember, a pride. At a time when markers are shifting, when crops are being diluted. In an era marked by migration, globalization and multiple influences, Daara J Family reminds us that identity is a foundation, not a burden. That heritage is not nostalgia, but a compass. And they offer a musical compass and identity with this single: Cosaan!
The monumental works depicting the battle of Little Big Horn, exhibited on the Pont des Arts in Paris in 1999, made the Senegalese artist famous. The installation has just joined the fortress in the Hautes-Alpes for at least ten years.
Muscled warriors meld, horse bumping. Sounds of the fury of battle are heard. Under the impressive curvilinear wooden frame of the old Rochambeau barracks, at the fort of Mont-Dauphin (Hautes-Alpes), is played the battle of Little Big Horn, opposing, in 1876, a coalition of Cheyennes, Sioux and Arapaho to the soldiers of General Custer’s regiment.
In thirty-five monumental sculptures, visible from 6 July, the Senegalese sculptor Ousmane Sow (1935-2016) celebrates the resounding victory of the fragile over the powerful. Deposited in this fortified village for a period of ten years renewable by his widow, the director Béatrice Soulé, this epic installation is well known to the Parisians who discovered it amazed, one day in March 1999, on the Pont des Arts.
The exhibition has remained in the annals with its record attendance – at least 3 million visitors in three months. «An unexpected success», recalls art critic Emmanuel Daydé, then deputy mayor for cultural affairs. For the former physiotherapist born in 1935 in Dakar, who later became an artist, it is consecration. But also, surprisingly, a swan song.
At the moment when Ousmane Sow gains international fame, the art world turns its back on him. Although he was the first African artist recognized in France, none of his successors, to whom he had paved the way, claimed it.
Mayor’s daughter supports her cause
It had all started well. In 1993, the Senegalese sculptor, who two years earlier had been on the cover of Revue noire – a quarterly magazine that revealed a number of African talents – was invited to the major five-year exhibition at Documenta in Kassel, Germany. In 1995, here he is at the Venice Biennale, which is to contemporary art what the Cannes Film Festival is to cinema. The autodidact dreams of an event in Paris.
By chance, he met Hélène Tiberi, daughter of the mayor at the time, Jean Tiberi. Who supports his cause at the City Hall. The location is easy: it will be the Pont des Arts, between the Louvre and the Academy of Fine Arts. It will take diplomatic treasures to convince these two institutions, who have not seen with a good eye the proximity of massive silhouettes imagined by an African artist.Archives «World»: Ousmane Sow questions Bordeaux and politicians
The neighbouring National School of Fine Arts, where figurative art was then taboo, is also pinching its nose. Money is missing. The Havas group had initially promised to contribute to the addition of 5 million francs (the equivalent of 1 million euros today), but its new CEO, Jean-Marie Messier, is sneaking out. Béatrice Soulé moves heaven and earth, finds sponsors and is personally indebted to the tune of 1 million francs. More here
Source: Le Monde
