Scratching the Surface, Dakar

Cheikh Anta Diop was a Senegalese physicist, historian and anthropologist whose work argued for ancient Egypt's Black African foundations and a shared African cultural continuity. Both UCAD and IFAN began as colonial institutions and were later renamed for him. Inaugurated on 19 July 2016, thirty years after his death, Vhils's portrait re-inscribes Diop and his anti-colonial thought on IFAN's façade, turning postcolonial renaming into physical form.