Pap Souleye Fall

Pap Souleye Fall in a black tee shirt standing on a street in front of a red brick building
Faculty

Sculpture (BFA in Fine Arts)

Pap Souleye Fall is a Senegalese American artist who explores the transmedia potentials of sculpture, installation, performance, cosplay, digital media, and comics. Much of his work reflects his growing up in the diaspora. Being of two worlds, Fall realized that through art, he has the ability to construct his own worlds. As such, he became fascinated with the ways art could be embedded in everyday life, activating common materials and encounters to explore themes such as diaspora, post-apocalypse, post-colonialism, identity, notions of masculinity, Africanisms, and Afro-Futurism.

Biography

Growing up, I became aware of my conflicting identities: feeling too American for Senegal, and too Senegalese for America. I spent a large portion of my childhood in Senegal, and after we moved to the U.S., we came back to Senegal every summer. The idea of being of worlds has culminated in me creating my own. My work is an attempt for me to have a better grasp of my sociopolitical upbringing and my relationship with my parents. A lot of my work has to do with memory: In past works, I focused on how memory could be retained through the materiality of the object I created; now, I focus on personal memory and nostalgia. 

A lot of American films contributed to a certain ideal of the U.S. When I moved to the States, it became more apparent that the fantasies in these films were not reality. It was through comics and Japanese manga that I was able to find an escape from the constant identity conditioning that happens in the U.S. through race relations. My mother is a Pan-African anthropologist and through her research, she traced part of our family back to Madagascar. Growing up, it was always fascinating and uplifting to know the lineage of your family. It wasn’t until recently that I finally met the entirety of my family on my mother’s side. It was such an amazing experience to see diversity of faces and color within Blackness and the diaspora. It was a really affirming experience.

Experience

Fall has held positions as an educator in varied capacities. 

  • Teaching Assistant, Intro to Sculpture, Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut

  • Sculpture and drawing, Senegalese American Bilingual School, Dakar, Senegal

  • Sculpture, Senegalese American Bilingual School) Dakar, Senegal

  • Summer program: dance, painting and theater, Sunu Thiossane, Dance, Dakar, Senegal

Website 

Visit Pap Souleye Fall’s website.

Awards & Accolades

Fall has been honored for his work numerous times. 

  • Dedalus Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship

  • Advanced Sculpture Award, Yale School of Art

  • Alice Kimball Travel Grant

  • Florence Whistler Fish Award for Student Excellence

  • Sculpture Faculty Award

  • Philadelphia Sculpture Award

  • Crozier Prize for Outstanding Achievement by First-Year Student (UArts) 

A pink and green and yellow and gray illustration by Pap Souleye Fall that depicts large gray figure with outstretched arms looking over two male subjects looking away from the center of the work on each side and one woman looking at a baby on a circle of light in the center of the image and two large pink hands stretched out at the top of the work
A photo of a human subject in a green bodysuit that extends over the face and is covered with large decorations that look like pearls
A large brown wooden abstract sculpture that resembles a rock formation with rounded edges