Sous-dieu (Au non de la liberté (Tiko drink Kumba drunk))

2020 - Photography (Photography)

60 x 90 cm

Chantal Edie and Zacharie Ngnogue

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Au non de la liberté (Tiko drink Kumba drunk) is a photographic series by Zacharie Ngnogue and Chantal Edie that considers the correlation between those who hold power in Cameroon and how their actions affect the populations they rule in often compromising ways. “Tiko drink-Kumba drunk” is an adage that is commonly used in the Southwest province of Cameroon to speak of how one’s actions affect others. Civil liberties are next to non-existent in Cameroon, the law is lawless, and structured in a way that is intended to attack its citizens’ human rights. In each photograph, the artists are teleporting, invoking themselves in front of public and administrative buildings, sometimes replacing monuments with their own bodies in order to symbolically restore their civil liberties. The majority of these infrastructures are inherited from colonial times and the formal contrast in colors alludes to the coexistence of this past and present. The photographs imply that though the colonial master has departed, their work continues through the current governance. To counteract this systemic subjugation, the work attempts to strike a visible balance that should exist between citizens and the authorities that rule them. The series is a manifestation, a protest for change, reason, action, and alternance.

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Chantal Edie and Zacharie Ngnogue are a photography duo who channel their personal experiences into social commentaries. Grappling with the idea of living together, what it means, and looks like, their works often feature a performative element as the artists use their own bodies in their photographs. The duo’s practice plays a significant role in the Cameroonian art scene and beyond, as it is intended as a way of participating in global social debates. For Ngnogue and Edie, it is a political act to boldly address the pressing socio-political issues of this time. It is a means for them to create space for expression, while still engaging and existing as citizens and human beings.

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Colors:

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• power.n.01
• civil_right.n.01
• public.a.01
• government.n.01
• architecture.n.01