Every year in Senegal thousands of tonnes of fruit are thrown away due to the lack of initiatives for processing and storing it, but particularly because Senegalese consumers simply aren’t used to eating processed fruit.

With a background in logistics and transport, Senegalese Mané Toure Ndèye is a skilled dancer and artist who hosts workshops across her country to raise the issue about the problem of eating fruit in Senegal: “Local consumption is important given the low economy of my country.”

With Côté Jardin, her independent initiative in Dakar, she seeks to connect food, tradition and artistic practices with innovative multidisciplinary arts.

“So far we have established the project in student environments and in a business school, so the youth are now my target! It’s exciting watching how young people who do not normally take care or interest in health matters are becoming the heart and engine of this project.”

Mané’s bar in Côté Jardin serves fruit juices and milkshakes to offer an exciting alternative way to eat fruit, whilst inviting people to reflect on social practices, and local and organic food. She seeks to recover traditional Senegalese dishes that are dying out, made from cereals such as millet (highly variable small-seeded grasses which are considered one of the world’s healthiest foods) and fonio (a West African grain that foodies would go crazy for.)

Côté Jardin also offers an ‘Open Office’ co-working and co-creation area, and a multidisciplinary arts programme.

Côté Jardin is featured in: An African AtlasChart: 4 magical citizen initiatives.

Medialab-Prado is a citizen laboratory of production, research and broadcasting of cultural projects that explores the forms of experimentation and collaborative learning that have emerged from digital networks. It is part of the Department of Culture and Sports of the Madrid City Council. GrigriPixel is a programme of residences, meetings and workshops on the manufacture of magical objects in urban spaces based on collaborative, artistic and digital manufacturing practices and strategies.