Africré@rt

mardi 14 mai 2019

Osmose-Culture's President dies in Douala

Delphin Neo gave up the ghost on Monday 13th May 2019, in Douala. Immediately after the announcement, tens of artists, family friends and other professional relatives took to social networks to pay tribute to the deceased.

Boris Eyidi Ekoumé, a close friend to the writer, said he was appalled following the disappearance of his “brother” and elder: “Oh my God... I can’t believe this is true !!!”, he wrote on his Facebook page. Aimé Tsopze, a classmate to Delphin added: “C’est pas croyable. Oh mon Dieu. NANODE comme nous l’appelions affectueusement au lycée d’Akwa où nous avons fait notre secondaire dans les années 90. Brillant littéraire, le meilleur poète de notre adolescence. Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé ? » he asked.

Mary Sherman, Founder and Director of Transcultural Exchange, who had excellent professional ties with Delphin Neo, expressed deepest sympathies as she said “This is devastating news! I am so, so sorry to hear that. What a great loss”, she said.
Komol Sipora, a Senegal based friend, was speechless:“It’s above my understanding, I mean, this is terrible! He once said he was sick. He said he was not feeling okay. But then we thought, since he's a positive person, he's going to recover ASAP. Alas! Now, I am convinced that he remained positive until the end. We had the chance to interact with him during his stay in Dakar and, from him, I've gathered very positive memories. He had the intellectual comfort each and everyone would have loved to possess. I still have the work of art he (almost dashed) me, it's a portrait, my portrait..."
Expressing gratitude to the painter, young poet, Yanik Dooh wrote:

Isaac Iboi, playwright who has been in collaboration with Delphin on past projects said he was shocked by this sad news. Senegalese-born artist, Ibrahima Thiam, praised the artistic qualities of the deceased recalling past experiences in 2017 and 2018 in Dakar.

Delphin Neo was a Cameroonian writer, painter and cultural promoter who lived and worked in Africa. He was known as the President and Co-Founder of OSMOSE, an African Cultural Association and Scènes Experimentales, an international biennial, founded in 2009.

In an interview to CultureEbène, he specified that, the idea of creating an association came up in Douala following an inheritance that its first constituents (by the time) wanted to prolong within the framework of the "Canal Exchange Culture" meetings which gathered Delphin Neo, Gustave Bin, Aggex Naba'B, and other laureats.
If Delphin Neo was then the administrator, the latter however underlined that the association was created by Miss Ngo Ntamak Rosine (of late) with the help of some artists and communication experts.

In 2012, he started paleontological explorations focusing on the Toumaï cranium, discovered in 2001 in the Djourab Desert to help explain the role of ecology in artistic practices.

In 2017, he began an excursion to Senegal to perform some preliminary works for approaching the Goree people and slave descendants to further his art and ecologic practice. Many of whom took part to the 4th edition of Scènes Experimentales organized in Dakar, shared memorable moments with the young man during the Master Class hosted by Sup Info, the Symposium on the ecological size of african art held at the Goethe Institute as well as events organized at Dakar's subburbs by his association.

In February 2018, Delphin Neo was guest of the Transcultural Exchange International Conference on opportunities in the arts, in Canada, to explore new artistics horizons.
http://www.transculturalexchange.org/2018-conference/bios.htm
Earlier before, in 2015, he gave himself the challenge of writing a 400 pages essay entitled “Les maux des arts et de la culture au Cameroun”. The book which was presented at the Muna Foundation, in Yaoundé, was made public in collaboration with Arterial Network Cameroon. http://www.spla.pro/file.book.les-maux-des-arts-et-de-la-culture-au-cameroun.16510.html

Passionate and hard working, he implemented a project in Yaoundé with the aim of publishing the works of young artists with focus on Novel, Slam, Poetry, and Plays. He leaves behind a series of unprecedented works and tens of helpless young artists.
Adios, el artista!

Dakar, 20th May 2017

vendredi 8 mars 2019

La militante Aïssa Doumara, premier prix Simone Veil

samedi 2 mars 2019

Rtb - FESPACO 2019 / l'Etalon d'or de Yennenga décerné au Rwanda

mercredi 27 février 2019

Tala Andre Marie - MANGER MA GUITARE

jeudi 31 janvier 2019

BOOK REVIEW: Irene Gaouda’s « The Enticing Legend of the Massa Warriors »

By Douglas ACHINGALE

When I first set eyes on a copy of "The Enticing Legend of the Massa Warriors", I thought the author had employed the word “enticing” simply to pull a fast one on the reader. But I was mistaken. Once I started perusing the work, I noticed that the lines were so luscious as to warrant me to get the very last page before I could drop it.

The first thing that glues the reader to the book is not so much the alluring front cover page picture of a female warrior on horseback as the epilogue which is a quote from one of the works of Africa’s all-time best storyteller, Chinua Achebe. It reads: “I believe in the complexity of human story, and that there’s no way you can telle that story in one way and say, “this is “. Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing… this is the way the world’s stories should be told: from many different perspectives”.

Douglas Achingale, right, during the book lunch.

The epilogue is therefore, the ornamental door through which the reader passes to delve into Irene Gaouda’s Exciting world of storytelling, which is the integral part of the African culture. For, as the songwriter puts it, “Storytelling is part of our culture/We must always recount to our children/ The story of our forefathers/ For it is part of our culture”.

Part one of the well-bound 89 pages book is the story of Laouda Soa, an inspiring old woman known more popularly by the sobriquet Ada. Besides being a great grandmother, she is the oldest woman in Kartoua- a vast village in Vele Sub-division, Mayo-Danay division of the Far North region of Cameroon. Despite her overly advanced age, Ada’s extraordinary physical and traditional qualities confirm her as a woman of gravitas who is overly useful in the village. For instance, in the words of the author, “During rainy seasons, at sunrise, the old woman hugs a hoe and a calabash of millet. Painfully, but surely, she moves step by step towards her plantations and sows". “Also, she takes the cattle out every morning for good food”. Having learned midwifery during her childhood when most localities in the area lacked medical facilities, Ada is the “doctor” of the village as she has assisted in the delivery of many a villager, including the 10-year-old Falita Félicité nicknamed Fifé, who happens to be the narrator of the legend of the Massa warriors.

Irene Gaouda, the author

Part 2 of the work is, of course, The Legend itself. The dictionary meaning of a legend is, a very old story or set of stories from ancient times, or the stories, not always true, that people tell of a famous event or person. That is exactly what we see in this section of the book. It is about the exploits of a squad of five intrepid female massa warriors of Goumgaya – a land with walled cities located near River Nile and built on top of man-made mounds overlooking wetland areas.

The warriors are Sawalda, Gasida, Yilaoussou, Moulda... After having liberated a people referred to by the writer as the Hybrids, from the hands of a monster, in a fierce battle in Egypt that lasted one century, the warriors return to Gougaya only to discover with shock and consternation that their families had been wiped out, just a few days before, by a group of weird people with heavy weapons, sent by a wicked king.

A partial view of the assistance

Courageous as they are, the girls resolve to avenge the killing of their families. So they set out a journey to capture and eliminate their enemies. The journey turns out to be quite eventful. After travelling for many years without finding the enemies, they were tricked by a strange and bogusly hospitable woman who told them that the former had escaped to the other side of the River Logone. The five warriors then embark on a journey to the area and are eventually engaged in a bloody fight by a giant monster that emerges from the river and on whose side the trickster old woman is. The monster do kill the warriors one after the other until just one is left- Sawalda. She ends up giving birth to a baby in a strange land where there are only animals.

The final episode of "The Legend" reminds me of the famous British Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, who uses mostly animal characters in his poems to explain human values; to lament the human struggle and the human condition.

A prologue naturally closes Gaouda's book. It is a sort of tribute to the diversity of the African population drawn from the work of Sarah Tishkoff, the geneticist who had/has joint appointments in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Medecine of the University of Pennsylvania, USA. She writes: "There is no signle African population that is representative of the diversity present on the continent. Therefore, many thnically diverse African populations should be included in studies of human genetic variation, disease suscetibility, and drug response". This reveals the author as a true pan-Africanist, isn't it?

Launching the Legend..., in Yaoundé

LESSONS DRAWN FROM THE ENTICING LEGEND...

First is the glaring contrats between tradition and modernity in the African context. Ada, the main character of part one of the work, represents the virtues of tradition which are opposed to the ills of our day-to-day experiences of the today. She has time to take care of and entertain the younger ones unlike our adults of today. Let us get the contrast as captured by the author: "Every evenving, the old woman gathers us around the fireside. You knwo how stressed are adults nowadays with their endless sentimental and financial problems! They run after money, but still, there is a lot of poverty around the corner. They run after women, but still there are lots of signle people hanging out. So, what do they want? Why can't they save time for us?

Second, (I think this should even be the first lesson) is that the art of storytelling should be encouraged and promoted on our continent in order to enhance the African culture.

The third lesson to draw from Irene Gaouda's book is the fact that the issue of marginalization of the woman or the women being the weaker sex is not an African thing. Otherwise, how do you explain the admirably extraordinary actions of Grandma Ada and the valiant feat of the five young ladies who fought a battle for one hundred years and won it?

Furthermore, there is the issue of continuity. By making Sawalda put to bed at the end of her legend, Gaouda is letting the reader to understand that after all the wars and plagues in society, after all the trials and tribulations of life and world may result in deaths, life will not cease to exist in Africa in particular and the world at large. Life will continue.

Last but not the least is the importance of animals to human life. All the help that the different animals offer Sawalda before and after she gives birth point to one thing: there is more in animals than meets the eye. The author uses animals to emphasize the fact that altghough they are lower in the natural order of things, animals are very useful to humans and will remain their lifelong companions.

Two pretty queens posing @ nowadays River Logone

More infos about the Critic @

https://www.google.com/search?q=Douglas+Achingale&oq=Douglas+Achingale&aqs=chrome..69i57.9863j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

mercredi 23 mai 2018

Dak'Art 2018: Tribute to Wangari Maathai

On the occasion of the 13th Biennale of Contemporay art dubbed Dak'Art 2018, 04 Experimentalists members of Osmose-Culture's project named Scènes Expérimentales and 1 Guest Experimentalist decided to pay tribute to Wangari Maathai (1940–2011).

Wangari Maathai was a scholar, and an environmental and Human Rights Activist. In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, a Non-Governmental Organization, which encourages women to plant trees to combat deforestation and environmental degradation.

To date, the Green Belt Movement has planted over 50 million trees. In the face of regular opposition, she succeeded in deepening and expanding her engagement with local communities through an impressive network of regional and international alliances, which made the Green Belt Movement a model women’s organization.

Increasingly aware that the environment was directly linked to issues of governance, peace and human rights, Maathai began to use her organization as a springboard in the struggle against abuses of power, such as land-grabbing or the illegal detention of political opponents.

She was eventually elected as a Member of Parliament upon Kenya’s effective return to multiparty democracy in 2002, also serving as Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Environmental and Natural Resources.

In 2004, she was the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here are the works of:
- Irène Gaouda
- Manfaust
- Keedi Hervey
- Delphin Néo
- Aby Diallo (Guest)

Presented at Dakar's Music School (EHA), opposite IAM Mermoz, in Senegal, with the effective contributions of:
- Ibrahima Thiam
- Audric Monteiro and the
- Collectif Arc-en-ciel Slam

Exhibition runs up to the 02 June 2018.
Click on Pictures below to view Album