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“A SAINT in the CITY: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal“ is one of the newer exhibits at UCLA’s Fowler Museum, and with the diversity of its contents and the extensiveness of its coverage of the subject matter, any student who does not take advantage of the ease with which the exhibit can be accessed is would be missing out on a whole world of knowledge.

I had no idea what I was going to see when I stepped foot inside the Fowler Museum of Cultural History – a permanent establishment on campus tucked in between the Taco Bell and the Anderson Business School. The title of the exhibit, “a SAINT in the CITY: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal” was enough to give me an inkling of the content, but I was in no way prepared for the large scope of what this display was representing.

Any visitors of the exhibit will notice that the first room contains photograph reproductions of what seem at first to be large portraits painted on walls of various famous figures, but in reality, all the pictures are merely pieces of an enormous mural, painted by a man named Pape Samb, a.k.a. “Papisto” (which is how he signs his work).

The mural sprawls across a 600-foot long factory wall in an industrial park named “Bel-Air” in western Senegal. The picture is packed with imagery and symbols galore. The little guide that the Museum puts out to help explain who the people are and what the symbols mean can barely scratch the surface.

Examining the mural, you will find images of Nelson Mandela next to Jimi Hendrix, and tigers next to the first democratic president of Senegal. There are singers, there are ascetics, there are swordfish, and there are depictions of history.

Everywhere, there are doves of peace, who always hold in their beaks a book, a letter, a scroll, or some other form of writing. It is worth noting that Muslims consider the act of writing to be somewhat divine. There are also many books and letters and such things scattered about the mural as well, including one titled “Le Senégal.”

Papisto enjoys hanging out by his masterpiece and just casually explaining the meaning of it to passers-by. Many excerpts from his explanation are found on the museum’s guide, and also later in the exhibit in video form, playing on a TV. “My wall is like literature,” explains Papisto. “Through these small images, one can see a small segment of life.”

It may seem that while this mural is notable for the time and effort required to put into it, there is a much deeper story than that. Papisto created this work as he was inspired by The Saint. That is, the same saint that the exhibit is about. This highly revered saint is Amadou Bamba.
Bamba was a real man, not mere legend, who lived from 1853 to 1957. He was a devout Muslim who resisted the French colonial authority, but he was no rioter. Bamba was a man of peace, a pacifist, and his followers today—known as the “Mouride Way”—still follow that example. They both fight against oppression of their people, and do it peacefully.

The Saint has arguably grown to be the most highly revered figure in all of Senegal, and somewhat beyond, too. There is only one photograph of the man, taken in 1913, and nearly all reproductions of The Saint are replicas of that one image.

The skill with which portrait artists reproduce the figure is astounding. It isn’t hard to confuse their handmade works with actual reproductions of the photo. The most amazing thing to learn from this exhibit is just how ubiquitous the images of Bamba are in Senegal. You will find The Saint everywhere, on buses, on buildings, on people’s clothing, on merchandise of all sorts, but mainly just as pictures that have no use other than being the picture of the guy who is basically the holiest man in popular Senegalese culture.

It is the prolific-ness of the image that boggles the mind. They are more common than images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus in Catholic cities combined. Part of the exhibit has a video tour of Touba, Senegal. That is the holy city that Bamba founded by beginning construction of a mighty mosque there. He died before it was finished, but his heirs took up the work and completed it. Quickly, a city sprang up around it and the hustle and bustle of that city is captured in part of this multimedia exhibit.

As I walked from room to room, the music playing in the background changed to match with each area’s atmosphere. The first room, with Papisto’s work, was playing popular music. I recognized that some of the music was by an artist depicted in Papisto’s mural. It was very pleasant to my Western ears, accustomed to only Western music. As I moved inward, the next few rooms had a more spiritual atmosphere, with works on display that explained more about Islam and Sufism in general. To match with that, the music changed subtly to chanting and prayer.

I found that the source of that music was a boombox in the middle of a reproduction of a modern holy man’s space. Modeled after Serigne Modou Faye’s place, it is like his house, where he lives and sleeps and preaches and offers spiritual healing. Every surface is covered in paintings, lithographs, banners, and of course tons of images of Bamba and Bamba’s family.

This was a walk-in exhibit. Inside, even the ceiling was painted, with a trompe l’oeil style “path to heaven” on it. A few other patrons thought this was hilarious, but on top of the chant playing stereo, there were two disco party light ball things, throwing colored lights all about the room. I don’t get why they thought religion can’t be allowed to advance with technology. It makes sense to me.

Large portions of the exhibit are devoted to glass paintings of The Saint’s life. Senegalese glass paintings are popular worldwide, because of their skill in creating them, and the intrinsic beauty of the works. It was interesting to note that in the glass paintings, angels of God are portrayed as being white people, with the same color of skin as the “bad guy” French colonialists.

Amadou Bamba wrote a lot of poetry and verse. The Sufis claim it was seven tons worth. Fowler has gotten its hands on some of the original writings, and they were written so beautifully that it made me wish I could read Arabic (because I can’t).

At the same time (and in the same space), there were myriad things that can’t be done justice with words. Colorful outfits for followers of the Mouride Way were there. Sculptures made of recycled metal designed to welcome people to an annual pilgrimage to the holy city Touba sat against the wall. A very popular singer, the diva of the Mouride Way, Fatou Guewel, donated one of her outfits to the museum. The outfit has an image of Bamba on it, of course, but is a beautiful purple with many other images on it as well.

Added to the mix are many objects that have no analog in our society. Prayer papers and special bowls for some ritual that I won’t dare to mangle describing were on display, along with many other instruments of the faith that all have to do with Bamba and the Mouride Way.

The exhibit was constructed excellently, in a shape that prevented you from realizing how far you had come, or where the end was. This helped to put me into the world of the exhibit, making it harder to remember the world outside was only about 30 feet away.

Again, there was just too much in the exhibit itself to adequately describe with words. Of course, reading about an exhibit is an experience that pales in comparison to visiting and seeing the exhibit first-hand. “A SAINT in the CITY” will be on display until July 27th.

Special thanks to Stacey Abarbanel for images and permission to publish!