Founded in 2019 by Aicha Chighaly, the Mauritanian company ARDINE works on promoting and preserving intangible oral and traditional heritage. Working hand-in-hand with the authorities, it draws up recommendations to enable identity-based, organisational and societal values to be better taken into account.

As a seasoned artist and avid traveller, Chighaly quickly became aware of the importance of museums in preserving heritage and the history of identities. The result was the ARDINE museum and festival, both the fruit of the ART’DUNES project.

These two spaces for expression, one focused on heritage preservation and the other on showcasing traditional artistic creation, are united by a desire to ensure that Mauritanian cultural memory lives on.

The association has already been very successful, with some one hundred women and 300 young people trained in different crafts and the making of instruments, including the ardine, the t’beul and other percussion instruments.