Cheikh Tidiane Diagne and Lamine Diagne
In this performance, actor and writer Lamine Diagne and his father, the painter Cheikh Tidiane Diagne, examine closely the unfinished legacy of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais. Tracing this history through their family lineage, they uncover an intimate thread running through their lives, bodies, and experiences as Black men in Europe today. As direct descendants, they recall how their father, grandfather, and great‑grandfather fought for France during the First and Second World Wars. Despite their active role, during the First World War, many African soldiers were later imprisoned under inhumane conditions at the Camp du Courneau, where nearly a third held there lost their lives. Later, following the end of the Second World War, many were forced to relinquish their uniforms and were excluded from the official celebrations marking France’s liberation from Nazi Germany.
Image gallery
![Lamine Diagne, Le Livre muet [Mutus Liber] (2022).](/system/files/styles/visitberlin_gallery_item_visitberlin_xxl_2x/private/datahub/images/e_df0ca7e33d3f972113035bcf35fb513a_img-hopop.jpg.webp?itok=55tM1dB2 "Lamine Diagne, Le Livre muet [Mutus Liber] (2022).")
Lamine Diagne, Le Livre muet [Mutus Liber] (2022).
In Lamine’s earlier creations, such as Le Livre muet (2022) [The silent book], his father appears only in fragments—his migration at sixteen, his arrival in France, his artistic awakening. In the piece he imagines his two grandfathers—one Senegalese, one French— trapped together while sheltering from bombing during the Second World War. Through these threads, the overlooked history of the Tirailleurs surfaces, alongside familial memories linking France and Senegal. In this new work premiered on the opening weekend of Tirailleurs: Trials and Tribulations, Lamine takes elements of his previous works and, together with his father, creates a shared ritual. Their gestures form a living dialogue, where personal and collective histories collide, overlap, and resist one another, resonating vividly with the present. Archival images and family memories are projected onto canvas and intervened through live painting by the father, while, in parallel, the son’s narrations layer stories, historical episodes, and ancestral invocations. Their staging rejects linear narratives, exposing continuities of injustice and exploitation, and the rites of transmission, reconciliation, and transformation needed to interrupt them.
Commissioned by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), co-produced by Compagnie de L’Énelle
With: Cheikh Tidiane Diagne and Lamine Diagne, video: Eric Massua
Additional information
Dates
March 2026
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