During the last Christmas market at the French Cultural Center in Dakar
I bumped at a fancy vendor cart designed for wax fabric outfits. I did not know
what I fancied the most, the cart or the clothing neither did I realize that the
cart itself was part of a project designed for the Cultural Center gardens for
and with women working in fashion in Dakar. Ambulantage project, named
after street vending, was in fact run by two french designers from WOS
"Agence des Hypothèses"; Claire Dehove and Julie Boillot-Savarin.
Itinerant vendors known as "marchands ambulants” are very much
part of Dakar’s city spectrum, Claire first explored the field of street stalls
in Saint-Louis in 2010. The project was originally called
“Diapalante", which means mutual aid in Wolof. Claire has worked with Xhar-Yalla
women's Association. These women make and sell various products in
Diamaguène market in Saint-Louis. Through exchanging at their workplace,
Claire gathered their desires and suggestions; that's how the first prototype
of stalls was designed. After going back to France, she shared her
experience and developed a “Diapalante" antenna on the campus of Paris HEC
(Business School). This antenna was a sort of laboratory where students experimented.
The collective was later given a new direction known as Ambulantage. The
concept addresses the current expansion of informal trade, Claire and
Julie wanted to be supportive and actresses of this inventiveness. They
uncovered new and interesting insights with the French Cultural Center and its
garden’s hosts.
While
this project was entirely designed and run for the French Cultural Center with
a targeted group, I think it is the harbinger of street vending solutions for
cities like Dakar where the informal sector generates 97% of new jobs in a country
with high unemployment rate and a high illiteracy rate; reaching 59.2% of the
total population. In his PhD thesis "marketing approach applied to the
informal street vendors’ system and wholesalers’ case in
Senegal", Abdoukhadir Djily Gaye argues the informal sector is
considered a class that can play a key role in the transition to democracy. He
also believes that the market economy is a major player in obtaining employment
and income for the vast majority of the Senegalese population. This reminds me
of a discussion I had with Dr Oumar Cissé while I took part in curating for “Design 4 People” at the last Dak’Art Biennale. Dr Cissé who’s an advocate of inclusive
design, agues that street vendors are part of the city scenery, we should
design solutions with them and for them. And according to Gaye, the informal sector
in Dakar produced 552,4 billion FCFA of goods and services with an estimated
added value of 380.9 billion FCFA value which represents 11.4% of GDP. Such
figures show the importance of the informal sector in a city like Dakar. The last raid to displace vendors was
difficult, some of them do not agree with the temporary location and perhaps a
project such as Ambulantage project could be developed for the Dakarois street vendor; an
opportunity perhaps to change the city landscape.
... brought by f a t i
Libre Ambulantage à Dakar
Du 08 Juin au 15 Juin 2013
Courtesy
Sources
