Selebe Yoon presents Tell me about your dream mosque, an exhibition by Fredj Moussa following a six-week residency in Senegal.
The exhibition comprises paintings, drawings, sculptures and a video installation. Fredj Moussa began his research with a story of Mohamed Gorgui Seyni Gueye, known as Sangabi, and the dream in which the Mosque of Divinity, now located on Ouakam Bay, was revealed to him in March 1973. He is said to have been ordered to follow a luminous model parachuted from the sky, leading him to the west of Dakar, where the mosque is said to have landed, adorned with the Arabic inscription: ‘الله أكبر’ [God is great].
A dreamlike architecture, the Mosque of Divinity becomes a space of possibilities – a dreamed space, a collective fable where Moussa unveils an encounter between the sacred and the speculative. Through a body of work, he explores the way in which a place transcends its material existence to become a site where beliefs, individual memories and shared histories converge.
The central installation presents a light, levitating architecture onto which are projected filmed testimonies about this founding myth. Like large cinema posters, the canvases hung in the space constitute a film advertisement. They refer both to common tales from the Ouakam district and to other fables, notably those of the Ouakam storyteller Birargo Diop.
Here, the artist adopts the point of view of the caiman, whose brains are extracted and used as a remedy. Finally, the “wearable sculptures” – as the artist calls them – are inspired by traditional dress, particularly those worn during prayers at the mosque, and take on the function of talismans and amulets, with a healing and protective power. Fredj Moussa combines real and fictional stories, beliefs and practices linked to this space, not only as a spiritual place but also as a territory belonging to the collective imagination.
Using this singular architecture with its simplified geometric form as a starting point, the artist explores the spaces where the here and the elsewhere can meet. The film’s posters stimulate the public’s imagination and instill a thought: what would be the mosque of your dreams?
Tell me about your dream mosque opened on the 22nd of May and will run until the 28th of June 2025 at Selebe Yoon Dakar.
About the artist
Fredj Moussa (b. 1992) lives and works between France and Tunisia. He graduated from the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2018 and resided at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2019. He studied at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains from 2021 to 2023.
Moussa’s work consists of films and sculptures used as costumes and sets. These pieces explore evolving landscapes. Weaving together reality and myth, each film unfolds as an immersive experience. Storytelling is a way of re-examining traditional narratives and offering new interpretations.
He has exhibited his work at Nuit Blanche in Paris (FRA), Loop Fair Barcelona (ESP), Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia (USA), among others. Fredj Moussa’s films have been selected for international festivals. He was a finalist for the Studio Collector prize at the Photo Days Festival at the MEP in Paris in 2022.
