If the history of African revolutionary figures is tending to disappear from our minds, Jacques Boga is making it a duty to remember, perpetuated through visual art. Interview.

By Adou Nguessan

Multicolored engravings with specific designs, glossy cotton T-shirts available in different sizes, flyers, mannequins dressed in the brand’s effigy, vinyl tarpaulin prints of the collections… what more could there be to attract visitors’ attention? This is all the more true given that all these media present a portrait gallery of figures from Afro struggles and resistance.

Kwamé Nkrumah, Oum Kalthoum, Maya Angelou, Thomas Sankara, Bernard Binlin Dadié, Patrice Lumumba…. So many heroes of the emancipation struggle engraved on teeshirts and bags. All of this is displayed in front of a brief description evoking the career of each of the characters, under the admiring gaze of visitors seduced by the originality of these garments, which they describe as masterpieces.

We’re at MASA on the « United souls » stand to meet Jacques Boga, an Ivorian entrepreneur living in Toulouse, France. He is the founder of United Souls, a clothing line that has been in existence for eight years in France, and which he decided to present to MASA visitors for its first exhibition in Côte d’Ivoire, his country of origin. With a degree in computer management, he converted to entrepreneurship by creating his own brand and his first e-commerce site.

In United Souls, he says, he found a unifying force that met a need for identification among young people. « I set out to make this brand, United Souls, which is a duty to remember set within an artistic approach ». He also told us that the tee-shirts worn by young Westerners bearing the image of Cuban legend Ernesto che Guevarra were a great source of inspiration.

This led to the idea of engraving these African wrestling figures on T-shirts and bags, with graphic effects, to enable their circulation in public spaces. Visitors to MASA are showing increasing interest in these T-shirts, even if the cost, considered a little too expensive by the public, remains a challenge that Jacques promises to meet by developing a marketing strategy based on the accessibility of his T-shirts to the middle class.

What these characters have in common is that they have demonstrated unshakeable conviction right up to their deaths. This was the case in politics with Thomas Sankara or the martyr of independence Patrice Lumumba, or in literature with Bernard Dadié, who remained honest, faithful to his commitments, his pen at the service of the people.Keeping the history of African struggle figures in the minds of young people is a challenge that United Souls hopes to take up. It’s off to a good start!