Tunbung Art Village, a haven for creativity in The Gambia

I have been working on a project in The Gambia these last few months, and during this time I have also had the chance to visit some other interesting projects in the country. One of these projects is Tunbung Art Village, a unique studio and community art project in the village of Tujering on the coast of The Gambia. Tunbung Art Village is a place where Gambians and international visitors alike can come discover their creative side in an inspiring environment, where art, earth building, recycling and the natural environment come together. The project was founded by Baboucarr Ndow, a renowned Gambian artist commonly known as Etu.

View of Tunbung Art Village
Tunbung Art Village is a green and inspiring outdoor studio, where one can explore creative ways of making art and architecture in harmony with the natural environment.

Promoting art and environmental protection

The site of Tunbung Art Village was the original site of Tujering village, before the village was moved four generations earlier due to unexplainable spiritual activities at the site. Etu bought the land because he was facinated by this story, and it became a source of inspiration for his creativity. When people saw that Etu was building a succesful project at the site, others also started moving to the surrounding areas.

Etu created Tunbung Art Village because he wanted to teach others how to discover their creative side. In particular, he wanted to encourage talented young people to take their skills to the next level so they could earn an income. Etu also wanted to use art as a tool to bring back Gambian heritage that has been disappearing due to imported European culture.

Art at Tunbung Art Village
Tunbung Art Village offers art and crafts workshops for both local and international visitors.

Protecting the natural environment and trees was another one of Etu’s goals. Tunbung Art Village is a green space packed with trees – a couple buildings are even built around a palm tree that acts as a central column, showing that trees can incorporated into buildings in a useful way without cutting them. Reuse of recycled materials is also abundant at Tunbung Art Village, and one of the first buildings at the art village was built using recycled bricks from an old Portuguese colonial building in Banjul.

Decorated building at Tunbung Art Village
Creativity at Tunbung Art Village is not limited to the canvas; it is also reflected in the buildings and in the way the natural environment is incorporated into the site.

Etu passed away in 2014, but his family keeps Tunbung Art Village and Etu’s memory and heritage alive. Tunbung Art Village continues to host workshops in arts and crafts such as screen painting and tie-dye. There is also a guest house for artists and people who want to experience art or get inspired by the creative atmosphere. Some of Etu’s last works are displayed at a gallery on site.

Experimental earth architecture of Tunbung Art Village

Before starting Tunbung Art Village, Etu spent several years studying and traveling abroad. When he returned to The Gambia, he brought back with him knowledge that guided him in the design of Tunbung – including knowledge about earth building. Earth is a traditional building material in The Gambia, but the rainy season causes a lot of damage to traditional mud brick houses and their thatch roofs. Hence, when building Tunbung Art Village, Etu turned to a more resistant technology that he had seen while traveling, namely compressed earth blocks.

CSEB house at Tunbung Art Village
Many houses at Tunbung Art Village are built out of stabilized compressed earth blocks.

Compressed earth blocks, or CEBs, are made by compacting a mixture of clay and sand into a brick using a specially made brick press. A small amount of cement can be used to make CEBs stronger and more resistant to rain, and the resulting bricks are then called compressed stabilized earth blocks (CSEB). CSEBs are stronger than traditional adobe mud bricks, and they are strong enough to hold concrete beams and hence also a second floor.

One bag of cement can be used to make 100 CSEBs, which is three times more blocks than what could be obtained if the bag of cement was used to make concrete blocks instead. This makes CSEBs more affordable than concrete blocks, and many people around Tunbung Art Village have now started building with CSEBs after seeing how strong the buildings at Tunbung are. The art village either rents out their brick press or they make blocks for people upon request. Different types of blocks can be made depending on the need; for example, many people request a smooth finish using fine earth, so that plastering is not required.

Manual press for compressed earth blocks made by Tunbung Art Village
Tunbung Art Village has made their own manual CSEB brick presses, and the technology is spreading in the surrounding communities.

Experimentation with CSEBs is one of the creative activities going on at Tunbung Art Village. Lime is sometimes used as an alternative to cement as lime provides good protection against termites, and Tunbung has also experimented with mixing seashells into the blocks. During construction, recycled materials and ceramics are used together with the CSEBs to create a unique style of building.

Creative use of CSEBs, ceramics and recycled waste at Tunbung Art Village
At Tunbung Art Village, compressed earth blocks are used in an experimental and creative way, combining them with both recycled and natural materials.

After seeing this curiosity to experiment with earth building, I asked one artist from Tunbung Art Village to participate in the project I have been leading in The Gambia. More about the results of this interesting cooperation will follow in a later post.

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