In the year 2000, as Ousmane Dia, a visual artist born in Tambacounda, Senegal, was ending a third cycle of formation in sculpture at the University of Art and Design of Geneva, he decided to invite artists and art lovers from diverse cultures to regroup into a cultural association. The Collectif Artistes Plasticiens (CAP) was created in Geneva, under the status of an non-profitable association and in 2003 a sister association was created in Tambacounda, capital of oriental Senegal.
Since 2001, CAP organises artistic exchanges which take place in alternatively three cities: Tambacounda, Geneva and Dakar. To date, more than 500 artists, students of art schools or schoolchildren, native from more than 20 countries took part in these exchanges which succeed one another every year under the abbreviation of TGD, three letters to designate a "collective art work " in creation since the first edition.