Le Fou Postcolonial Insane

2019 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

26:26, 21:07, 07:34, 22:20, and 15:14 minutes (93:00 minutes total)

Guy Woueté

---

The video installation Le Fou Postcolonial Insane by Guy Woueté is a series of five videos that examine the concept of insanity in the post-colonial Democratic Republic of Congo. The first three videos in the series were shot in a market place in Lubumbashi, the second largest city in the Congo, where several psychoanalysts explore mental health in the context of the Congolese public sphere. Throughout the video series, Woueté links this public health examination to memories of colonial history. In the last two videos in the series, the artist juxtaposes two subjective perspectives on the colonial regime in Belgian Congo. Tracing both the contemporary context and historical narratives, the project aims to destigmatize the topic and conditions of insanity. Woueté states the video series demonstrates how the ways in which history is narrated are complex and often problematic, emphasizing that it is important to “take care” of how history is chronicled and retold.

---

Guy Woueté is a video artist, sculptor, and painter who also embraces installation and photography in order to create his images via a conceptual approach. His interdisciplinary practice seeks out the gaps in social rhetoric wherein opportunities for criticism and critical reflection might arise. Woueté’s work also considers immigration in the age of globalization. As such, the history of his home country of Cameroon plays a major role in his work and everyday lived realities are his source of inspiration.

---

Colors:

---

• mental_health.n.01
• colonialism.n.01
• documentary.n.01
• history.n.01
• psychology.n.01