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Today, I have the chance to share an interview with Soumaïla Kanla ....

It was interesting for me, once again to evoke the trees, the plants but this time with a more artistic connotation.

By way of introduction, here is the proverb that inspired me by dwelling on Mr. Kanla ..

There is the nature which is the thing that God does immediately and there is art which is the thing that God does through the brain of man.

 

Hello Soumaïla, can you present us in a few words your journey?

Hello my name is Soumaïla Kanla, Designer, Cabinetmaker, specializing in the research and use of dead wood lumber. The use of dead wood is a solution that I found to do my cabinetmaking and design work while trying to impact the environment as little as possible.

 

We will come back later to this concept of environment but to understand this dead wood, is it easier to work or is it a choice to preserve the environment?

The choice of this material for me is already a patriotic act (transform the local raw material, available and untapped). Burkina being a Sahelian country, it is inconceivable for us to cut down green trees to make lumber. Burkina being a Sahelian country, it is inconceivable for us to cut down green trees to make lumber. The concern to protect what we do not have in large quantity, and that takes a lot of year to grow.

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What motivated you in each of your steps? -

"Deadwood Lumber" Dead wood or especially naturally dried wood. This is the case of dead wood in Burkina, a material that is difficult to work like many exotic woods. In addition it requires a great cleaning before because it can contain silica or earth brought by termites.

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What is your opinion on these forests that are sold to Europeans? on land grabbing?

The forests and all that they contain, are first and foremost the property of local and riparian populations, the sale of the forests comes from the fact that the forest owners do not know how to estimate the value and even if they know how to do it they do not can not afford to transform or value them locally. Ignorance of property rights also means that entire families are dispossessed of their land. knock the door open for companies in search of precious wood from Africa (with an environmental ethic where not). Can we really fight against poverty by continuing to help us, poverty for me is the major factor that leads someone to sell the land of his ancestors.

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Who are your main customers? art lovers or nature advocates?

Many of our customers are first challenged by the work and beauty of the wood. Beautiful veins, sublime colors and unimaginable are the advantages of the material we have chosen. After the presentation of our products, the style of manufacture, the origin of the raw material and the philosophy of the company. We realize that we are both interested and sensitive to this precious good that we have in common, which is nature. And also that art lovers can be advocates for the environment.

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Do you associate your activities with a more environmental or artistic message? or both?

Deadwood Lumber is the key to presenting our products. We use art to enter into communication on the subject of the environment and the wealth of the Sahel eco-system, its fragility and also its preservation.

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Is not the environment an abandoned form of art?

Art is everywhere, some of our products are just a presentation adapted to our interiors of objects found in the bush.

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Back in Burkina Faso, how did you see the eyes of your family and Burkinabés as a whole on your art? - how does the African family consider art in their daily lives? and if not, how can he change his perspective on art?

To do what I do is to be crazy already. We do not go to France to return to be lumberjacks or sculptors. The art that comes out of the figurative * and the utility is seen in the background. Abstract is a kind of useless object created for the pleasure of Westerners, or Africans who live like them. I had to adapt my creations to try to make objects that appeal to both Burkina and Westerners.

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How does your extended family relate to biodiversity awareness? Did you use dead wood to change the way people look at the importance of trees and the preservation of biodiversity?

Art is only useful if it nourishes its man. Whatever the type of art, the important thing is to live on it. At this moment we are accepted by society. I gladly receive all the pieces of wood that many decide to give me or to sell to me instead of burning it. Through our work on wood we have come to raise awareness about the importance of tree planting. Our nursery stuck to the workshop challenges our customers and visitors on the principle of deadwood lumber. The recovery of dead wood and not the felling of live trees for the production of lumber or charcoal. The provision and sale of rare planted endemic plants such as Senegalese rosewood.

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- What are the reasons given when you explain using mostly dead wood?

In a country like our we can not cut down green trees for timber except trees from private plantations. This is the first reason, the dead wood is destined to be burned, to recover it for us is a citizen act.

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is work on wood a stage or is it the purpose of your multiple experiences?

Working for me is a dream come true, I seem to have many more dreams to live while continuing to explore the dead wood

You coordinated clothing creations from local products. Did this creation have any repercussions on these subjects? better preservation? Another use?

Local cotton was the basic material for clothing creations in partnership with Association Art Expo, the Gulmu Art Gallery and the designers of Fada N'Gourma *. This style of clothing is becoming more and more important and exceeds the objectives we set ourselves. More and more designers are incorporating local cotton into their creations. We were not at the origin of this fashion, it came from the avant-garde ideas of our father of the revolution Thomas Sankara *.

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- Do you also recover? can this serve as "communication" to allow recycling?

We integrate communication throughout the manufacturing process, from the recovery of wood in the bush to its processing and marketing. Our work is the basis of awareness for the protection of the environment.

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Could you explain how you are doing to acquire this wood? what constraints?

We take an authorization from the forest services for the recovery of dead wood. We purchase firewood from local suppliers, under conditions of presentation of official documents, thus encouraging the loggers to bring legal documents.

 

Do you also keep abreast of any initiatives taken in this direction, for example, the French-Senegalese association "Terre et culture solidaires" * which recovers plastic waste, including used tires, to make benches for schools , or the manufacture of bark tissue? What does it inspire you?

With social networks, we do not escape the great communication. We even become addict. I discover Terres et Cultures Solidaires, through this interview, which I salute the will to promote a development based on the real needs of the populations. But it is up to me to ask my brothers to take their responsibilities. We are such a rich continent that we should not be helping us out. This effectively involves the training and willingness of everyone to see their own conditions of life improve. All ethical actions taken to improve living conditions and protect the environment are welcome. As we say here "with one hand we will not pick up the flour"

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You chose to return to Burkina Faso: Was it to decompartmentalize art by seeking a more direct relationship with the territory in favor of constraints in museums or galleries? For greater independence?

At first, the desire was to return to do something in my country to reconnect with my territory.

After a few years in France I had the chance to learn the craft of cabinetmaking and I was keen to be able to train and create a dynamic around this profession. In my opinion art can be done everywhere and above all we can create activity and generate employment.

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 Is the context of a work, the setting and the infrastructure as important as the content?

For me, African art has no boundaries, especially since the greatest African sculptors have never known a museum or galleries, but we find their works there. The context here plays because I come to find the materials and the soil necessary for my art and my inspiration.

 

- What advice would you give to a young person who would like to walk in your steps?

Go for it and above all take the time to train and mature your project.

Finally, what was your biggest challenge? or your biggest failure? and how did you go beyond it, transcended? or finally turned positive?

My big challenge was to come back home, open my studio and develop my business there. The failure was to open the workshop and find myself alone in it at first because misunderstood. Until today for someone who wants to do training I only have two apprentices who after 1 year only begin to grasp my vision and what I want to convey. I transcended it and continue to do it by working, showing what I do and trying to live from my art.

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If you were a tree? WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

I will be the ebony tree of Africa (gabou) is a tree a little mystical, it is used to heal the crazy name that I am often given because people do not always understand what I came here to do . It is a very precious wood, rare that I seek to enhance through my creations and my job.

 

Thank you Soumaila for all these answers ...

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I think that a man's career is as important as his work and that it is important to share it so that it is in its own way an engine for others.

After this conversation, I wanted to know more about certain themes that I share with you. Good reading

 

African Beetle: Medicinal Uses:

The fruits are used to treat dysentery and diarrhea. The bark is antibiotic, antifungal, anti-haemorrhagic and aphrodisiac. The leaves are disinfectant for wounds, pimples, and otitis but are also included in a millet-based preparation for erectile dysfunction. The roots are deworming. The combination of roots and leaves is effective for treating mental illnesses. The bark is a cure for rheumatism, headache, and sexual impotence.

It is a tree considered locally as having magical powers. The leaves are laxative and are also used for fever.

Tree planted for its shade, it provides a pinkish, veined, hard and heavy gray wood that is used for frameworks, tool and weapon handles, bows, as toothpicks, and charcoal.

 

 

In Burkina Faso, leaves and green fruits are used in the preparation of decoctions for the care of diarrhea and dysentery.

They are also used in bath for the care of wounds, burns and conjunctivitis.

Ripe fruits, with sweet and tart pulp, are eaten.

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The African ebony tree can exceed fifteen meters in height. Its trunk is robust and cylindrical. Its simple leaves are sometimes wavy on the edges. The species is dioecious: there are male trees and female trees. The female flowers, greenish-white, give small round fruits, edible once yellow and containing black seeds.

This species is fairly common, disseminated locally, in West Africa, tropical and southern, as well as in Arabia. She is very appreciated for her wood.

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Conservation of dead woods and old trees
Dead trees are considered uninteresting by many people. Forest owners are unfavorable because they see it as a financial loss or a security risk. As for the public, the pejorative aspect of the dead wood is explained by a feeling of disorder.

Dead trees are still considered uninteresting by many people today, from forest managers to the public. Forest owners are mainly against dead wood because they see it as a financial loss (the amount of wood they will not be able to sell) or a security risk of leaving trunks that can fall at any time. As for the public, the pejorative aspect of dead wood on the ground is explained by a feeling of disorder, of no maintenance or even of abandonment of the zone.

Yet scientists are unanimous on this point: old trees and dead trees belong to a healthy forest ecosystem, and their presence is essential for the preservation of biodiversity. In fact, about one-fifth of the forest fauna is dependent on dead wood: beetles, mosses, lichens - and almost 85% of fungi, whose ecological role is fundamental.

Each forest contains dead wood. These include dead branches or stumps, but also, and especially, very large dead trees, or old trees that will someday reach the age of a natural death. Today, more than half of the beetles living in dead wood are at risk, because for some species of insects, crossing a distance of 50 m to the nearest dead tree is already an insurmountable difficulty. If their host tree is removed and they can not find another nearby, their population is sentenced to local extinction.

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Interest in preserving dead wood
Whether in gardens, parks, forests, hedgerows, decaying or dead trees are too often deemed unnecessary or even dangerous, likely to spread pests and diseases to healthy trees. In a balanced environment, this is not the case. On the contrary, they represent an essential link in the ecosystem, a phase of recycling dead organic matter. But they are too often destroyed, which results in the rarefaction of the many species that depend on it. It is no coincidence that the Greater Capricorn, Rosalie des Alpes, Pique-Plum or Lucane Kite, which live in dead or rotten wood, enjoy a protection status in our country.

They have become as rare as dead trees in our environment.  Among the species still present, many are in a delicate situation from the point of view of their conservation. Species such as the White-backed Woodpecker or the Three-toed Woodpecker are known in France only in a few stations. For Europe, Speight (1989) estimates that 40% of saproxylic beetle species are endangered over a large part of their range. The majority of others are declining.
In addition, many populations of the species present are reduced and fragmented. The absence of saproxylic insects from some recently stored forests with a high density of old wood and dead wood could indicate that forests with rich saproxylic fauna have become so rare, so scattered, so remote, that Natural colonization has become locally difficult or impossible.

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                                                    Taillisfée Plantes sens, & Essences

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