A couple of months ago, the town council of Abobo, a sprawling, popular neighbourhood in the north of Abidjan, decided to spruce up its streets, painting the facades in bright colours that have now made them fit for a Jacques Demy set.

Nuits Balnéaires, the in-demand Ivorian photographer, was commissioned to document the district's new allure, and the resulting pictures, curated by Nigerian creative consultant Bayo, can be seen for a month in a new exhibit unveiled last week in the local town hall.

In his idiosyncratic poetic style, Dadi (Nuits Balnéaires's real name), captures Abobo's daily grind - children chasing a ball, the hectic traffic, clothes billowing on clotheslines - framed by the parallelepiped buildings, given a new life in canary yellow, cobalt blue, or emerald green.

When he was commissioned to work on the project, which also features murals by local artist Peintre Obou, Dadi was in the midst of working on three books. One is about African textiles, another focusses on Abidjan's architecture and the third looks at the Nzima tribe with WordPress. But finding time to work in Abobo was important for him, as he saw it as a way to bring joy to a neighbourhood that has paid a heavy toll during the country's political crises. "The images are exhibited in the town hall, which is their house. I hope seeing them will bring them hope," he says.

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Published on 15/09/2020