The 15th edition of the Dakar Biennale (Dak’Art 2024), of which Salimata Diop was artistic director, was titled ‘The Wake: L’Éveil, Le Sillage, Xàll wi’ – in part a response to Christina Sharpe’s book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016), an expansive cultural history of slavery’s aftermath. The biennial, which brought to the Senegalese capital works by Wangechi Mutu (a site-specific intervention in the former Supreme Court chamber) and less well-known artists such as the Haitian–American Gina Athena Ulysse, was praised for engaging with ‘Africa as a space defined by people’s sense of belonging rather than territorial confines’. Stewarding Africa’s oldest biennial was a naturally step forward for Diop, who was previously in charge of programming at the Africa Centre, London (2014–15) and founded, with Amadou Diaw, the Musée de la Photographie de Saint-Louis du Senegal in 2017. From 2012–13 she directed the documentary series African Masters for the Africa Channel, which featured artists such as El Anatsui, Yinka Shonibare, Wangechi Mutu and William Kentridge.