Baye Fall: Roots in Spirituality, Fashion, and Resistance - Photography by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn

Baye Fall: Roots in Spirituality, Fashion, and Resistance is a photographic series that visually engages the Baye Fall, an enterprising sub-group of Senegal’s notable Sufi Muslim community, the Mourides. These images encourage viewers to contemplate Sufism in a West African context by exploring the community’s reverence for Baye Fall’s founder and leader, Cheikh Amadou Bamba, and his most celebrated disciple, Ibrahima Fall, the namesake of this suborder. An integral part of the cultural fabric of Senegalese society, the Baye Fall possess a unique aesthetic that includes ‘locked’ hair, patchwork garments, symphonic chanting and artisanal leather talismans and prayer beads. Gathering after the evening prayer to sing in collectives called dahrias, their voices gently resonate throughout the shadows of the night. But perhaps the most distinctive aspect of their religious practice is the incorporation of physical labor as a form of worship. Through witnessing the everyday lives of the Baye Fall, and the Senegalese cities in which they dwell, this series shows how indigenous ideology and pre- and post-colonial politics have influenced the contemporary spiritual practice of the Baye Fall, as well as their social, economic and political philosophies. —– Baye Fall: Roots in Spirituality, Fashion, and Resistance is supported in part by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), administered by Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC). MoCADA’s exhibitions program is supported in part by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) in partnership with The City Council, and private funds from Lambent Foundation and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. A selection from Baye Fall: Roots in Spirituality, Fashion, and Resistance is on view in Florence, Italy at Museo Bardini as part of the ReSignifications exhibition curated by Awam Ampka, NYU Professor of Cultural Analysis. http://mocada.org/baye-fall/