Em’ kal Eyongakpa approaches the experienced, the unknown as well as collective histories, through a ritual use of repetitions and transformation. He works with photography, video, sculpture, text, sound and performance.

His residence at Kadist draws from a sonic experience during one of his Paris visits, in May 2013:
“Walking pass a street in the neighborhood of Château Rouge, street vendors negotiating with their clients left me with a feeling of displacement and nostalgia — a sense of familiar sounds struggling in a Parisian architectural setting. The rhythmic currency, negotiation codes to product names, all perculiar to open markets public spaces across central and west Africa and the nuances inbetween.”

« Fumbua ! carton à 10 euros,
bobolo ! 3 pour 2 euros,
Safou, 8 à 5 euros, ceintures, arachide frais…. »

For his experiment, negotiations, Chapter 1-i, Em’kal Eyongakpa composes a fragmented narrative from sounds recorded in Paris and Douala, in selected informal market settings, transport routes with excerpts from natural soundscapes or spaces where the objects of these negotiations are extracted.
In these spaces of negotiations, identities are in constant mutation as the ancient confronts set urban codes. The dynamics of these spaces usually tend to mirror “maximalist” urban variants of ethnic music; like Bikutsi in Cameroun, Congotronics in RDC or even Juju in Nigeria.

In negotiations, Chapter 1-i, the artist plays with undertones of negotiations and creolization of these highly political spaces. He attempts a dialogue between the intense anthrophony of these spaces in and with a “white cube”.

« How could one capture the beautiful essence or energies of these spaces of constant negotiations without over-altering the « maximalist » nature of the loud and seemingly chaotic environments. »

Opening reception on May 21, from 6 to 9pm
with a performance of artists Em’kal Eyongakpa and Jabu Arnell

Em’kal Eyongakpa composes a fragmented narrative from sounds recorded in Paris and Douala, in selected informal market settings, transport routes with excerpts from natural soundscapes. Sound waves echo stock exchange curves, which turns space into a place of negotiation

Em’kal Eyongakpa (b.1981, Cameroon) lives and works between Yaoundé, Cameroon and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Drawing on dreams and observations, he approaches the experienced, the unknown as well as collective histories through a ritual use of repetition and transformation. He works with photography, video, sculpture, text, sound and performance. His interwoven installations not only obscure the boundaries between employed media but could also distort the notion of the real and the illusory. He has exhibited at Savvy contemporary and NBK, Berlin (2014), Sesc_Videobrasil, Sao Paulo (2013), Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2012), 10th Dak’art biennale, Dakar (2012), IFC yaounde, (2012), Doual’art, Douala (2011) among others. From 2013-2014, he was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. He is currently in residency at Kadist Art Foundation, Paris where he will have a solo exhibition from May to July 2015.

Kadist Art Foundation is a non-profit organization that encourages the contribution of the arts to society. It conducts programs primarily with artists represented in its collection to promote their role as cultural agents. Kadist’s collections and productions reflect the global scope of contemporary art, and its programs develop collaborations between Kadist’s local contexts (Paris, San Francisco) and artists, curators and art institutions worldwide.

Kadist Art Foundation, Paris
19 bis-21 rue des Trois Frères
F-75018

www.kadist.org