Aboubakar Fofana

Aboubakar Fofana (b.1967, Mali) has reinvigorated and redefined West African indigo dyeing techniques. His work stems from a profound spiritual belief that nature is divine and that, through respecting this divinity, we can understand the immense and sacred universe. His raw materials come from the natural world, and his working practice revolves around the cycles of nature; the themes of birth, decay and change; and the impermanence of these materials.

In conjunction with the local community in Siby, Mali, Fofana farms two types of indigenous West African indigo in what will be the centerpiece for a permaculture model based around local food, medicine, and dye plants. Through this project, he hopes to contribute to the rebirth of fermented indigo dyeing in Mali and beyond, his life's work. Fofana was featured in Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel, Germany (2017).

For Ground/work 2025, Aboubakar Fofana created Bana Yiriw ni Shi Folow (Trees and Seeds of Life), a “tree of life” that explores natural colorants, particularly indigo, as carriers of contemporary abstraction and ancestral knowledge.