Bijoux Cailloux is a solo presentation of the Cameroonian visual artist Guy Woueté. Taking inspiration from the context of Njombé-Penja, a historically and politically loaded district in Cameroon, the exhibition addresses the issue of labour in our capitalist world through a scenography referencing the aesthetic of what could be a small market in Cameroon. The main installation within takes the form of typical commercial stands displaying and becoming artworks in progress themselves, realised over the past years. The stands articulate other more autonomous signs, forms and images deployed in the space.

Bijoux Cailloux is an exhibition that speaks about a question that has been central in Woueté’s practice: the issue of Labour in our capitalist world. Taking from the context of Njombé-Penja, a commune in Cameroon where the artist grew up, Bijoux Cailloux elaborates on the different invisibilized forms of capitalism in regions that have been labeled “Third World”. Woueté’s practice has attempted to make evident its injustices and its violence to the eyes of the audience, inviting them to reflect on the effects of their consumption habits. Former colonial territory Njombé-Penja is known as a massive agricultural hub that has been in the hold of big corporations taking over the lands known for their fertile properties for the promotion of monocultures. There, among other products, bananas, coffee, cocoa, pepper and palm oil are produced by the hands of exploited local labor force working under precarious conditions. The neoliberal economy in Njombé-Penja has shaped and transformed the whole society becoming a city of transit. While the locally produced goods make their way to the West to feed economically stable places, the inhabitants’ daily lives are taking a different shift. Most men’s time is occupied by their work in the plantations, women get the responsibility of taking care of children, and children dream of leaving one day for “a better future”. Bijoux Cailloux examines how  ways of survival, forms, and gestures of resilience are created through that transitional space and recall the urgent call for reparation to build new imaginaries. 

Bijoux Cailloux is an invitation to look at the world from the perspective of an inhabitant from Njombé-Penja or any other location sharing the same realities to reflect on the idea of VALUE in today’s world.  

The exhibition will be complemented with a film programme curated by Guy Woueté and Annabelle Aventurin.

Biography

Aude Christel Mgba (1991, CM) is an independent curator and art historian based between Cameroon and the Netherlands. She’s currently curator of contemporary art at the Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle. 

Aude engages with decoloniality through research projects and creating platforms that aim to transcribe, translate, and embody ancestral knowledge. Her curatorial experiences include collaborations that question forms of making and showing art which tend to be centered between art institutions and art workers. She is more interested in collaborations that expand beyond these spaces to embrace other communities. 

Mgba was the founder and coordinator of Rencontre (2014-2016), an exchange platform focusing on the work of art professionals from the contemporary art scene in Cameroon. Before moving to the Netherlands, she worked as a curator at Doual’art in Douala (2017-2018). 

Among many other projects, Mgba was assistant curator for the 4th edition of the triennial SUD(Salon Urbain de Douala (2017), co-curator of Sonsbeek20->24 (2019-2022), co-curator of the Hartwig Art Foundation Special Project (2020-2021), curator of the Curated section of Art X Lagos (2021), and curator of the Prix Region Sud in Marseille ( 2022). 

Mgba is also the artistic director and curator of the next edition of the Luleåbiennialen 2024 in Norrbotten, Sweden.