From a distance, he looks grumpy. A little suspicious too. A coffee later, Bibi Seck invites you to enter her head. To describe his journey, he speaks of “another world”: a science fiction story that the Senegalese designer has been writing with pencil strokes since the beginning of his career, in 1990. That of a humanity that has taken refuge in suspended cities, at high altitude, to breathe healthier oxygen. “This world is run by the Wané Corporation,” he says with a boyish smile. “Wane”? “In Wolof, it’s someone who puts a little more style to achieve his goal. »
Beard, orange cord on his glasses, Djib Anton t-shirt, silver bracelet, Bibi Seck has made “style” a way of life. Ibrahima André, his real first name, is a figure of design in Senegal, but also in Europe and the United States, known in particular for his furniture and his designs for outdoor facilities. Toyota, Herman Miller, Hewlett-Packard or even Moroso, he has been collecting prestigious collaborations for twenty years and lots of prizes too. “I like to draw, it’s an obsession,” he insists. I illustrate what I have in my head. It’s as if I had a parallel life. »
This “obsession” can be seen in his gallery, located a stone’s throw from Place de l’Indépendance, in Dakar, the city where he grew up after being born in Paris. Her name ? The Quatorzerohuit, in reference to its day and month of birth, the same as that of the businessman and friend Oumar Sow, owner of the place. A space as vast as a New York loft, in which colorful chairs, stools, tables and other armchairs are displayed in majesty, alongside other designers, including his son.
“Discipline in Service to Others”
Some pieces designed by Bibi Seck, from the Taboo collection, have a singularity that is not obvious: they were made from the capital’s garbage cans, more precisely from the plastic bottles that flood the streets. Designing aesthetic objects by recycling ubiquitous waste in Senegalese decor has earned Bibi Seck to be seen as an apostle of “fair design”. This expression amuses him because, for him, “design is above all a discipline at the service of others. And its mission is to find solutions on a daily basis. There is nothing complicated. »
His designs have one thing in common: a curve. “Between two points, the shortest way is to the right. But the job of the designer is to make that path more interesting,” he explains. A gesture that stands out clearly on the rocking chair designed in 2017 for Ikea and even more on the Bayekou, the Nopolou or the Toogou, names of seats in the shape of twirling loops. “I cut to the chase,” he said. At first glance, my furniture seems simple because my desire is to offer forms that are timeless and easily memorable. Even a child should be able to redraw them. One of my concerns is to democratize design. »
Bibi Seck’s curves can also be seen in her paintings hanging on the gallery walls: twisted faces, wavy bodies, especially of women, toads with disproportionate legs…
“No Rastaman in the family”
Mid-1980s. Bibi Seck follows a preparation course in Paris to enter an engineering school: his father, a Senegalese diplomat, wants him to become an architect. That’s good, he wants to do a job related to drawing. “I walk around the Marais and pass a design school. I knew nothing about this discipline, not even Philippe Starck, he remembers. When I talked about it with my father, he told me “I don’t want a Rastaman in the family”. I ended up convincing him. “Just after his studies, Bibi Seck was recruited in 1990 by Renault in the design department. We owe him the interiors of some models of the Scenic, the Twingo or the Trafic. He is the first African hired in this branch, but that does not matter: “There was nothing African in my work with Renault, he underlines. Design has no boundaries. It is his strength. »
After fourteen years in the service of the French car manufacturer, he opened in 2004 with his wife a design agency called Birsel Seck based in New York, before returning to live in the country. In Dakar, he collaborates with a myriad of craftsmen who, with few means, manage to sublimate wood, plastic and metal. “I had to adapt to them,” he says. In Senegal, as in the rest of the continent, the industrial capacities to manufacture design are non-existent, so when he places an order, it can only be for a few pieces. “You have to take this reality into account,” he acknowledges. By working with them, Bibi Seck pushes these craftsmen to value their know-how. “I don’t want us to take advantage of their precariousness. We must stop with these practices. They must be remunerated as fairly as possible, he thunders. For me, the development of the country cannot be done without the craftsmen and the enhancement of their work. »
There is a dream he would have liked to realize in Dakar: to open a design school. A school capable of formalizing the informal. “All Senegalese are designers. They have a creative force without having had an academic training, he points out. I would like such a school to exist, but it is up to the new generation to take care of it, those who are between 20 and 30 years old, not me. I want to devote myself to my paintings. And one day finish his story on the Wané Corporation.