Published: 19 May 2017
Country: Mali, Bamako
“Motorcycles never die in Bamako. That is the first thing that strikes you when you drive on the streets of Bamako. There are motorcycles everywhere, often with women drivers dressed in colourful clothes,” says Khalil Sow, a Dune Voices journalist based in Mali’s capital city. His story produced for Dune Voices about an artist using motorcycle parts for art installations was picked up and published by the BBC Arabic.
The Media Diversity Institute designed and set up Dune Voices, a multimedia platform for stories featuring marginalised communities in the Sahara region in 2014. Potential of the stories coming from Dune Voices journalists was soon recognised by many regional and international media, including the BBC, that republished and rebroadcast them.
Rima Marrouch, the Dune Voices Editor-in-Chief, says there are not many positive stories coming from Mali recently. “In the same time, environmental stories, especially in Europe, seem to be popular. I thought that commissioning a good visual story about recycling motorcycle parts and making art out of it, could be a good video-making exercise at the Dune Voices workshop in Mali,” says Marrouch.
“When I arrived at Le Lac de Lassa, an art space in Bamako, I sat on a chair made from motorcycle parts. Sidiki Traore, an artist and co-founder of the space, uses old motorcycle parts and plastic containers to produce not only art (metal installations) but also furniture for daily use (mostly chairs and lamps).”
“Together with DV journalists we spent half a day at Le Lac, filming Traore at work and then interviewing him. We returned to the hotel in the afternoon for a quick edit. The rough cut was done in a day. After returning to London, I showed the video to one of the editors at the BBC Arabic and suggested to do a digital video. Write the scrip and add the writings to the video and this how the story was published, a short video,” says Marrouch.
Dune Voices is part of the MDI project “Inclusive Voices for Conflict Prevention and Democracy Building in North Africa: Bringing the Voices of the Sahara into the Public Sphere” supported by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.