By Jelle Bouwhuis
For the SMBA Research Programme Africa Reflected we visited art space Doual’art, named after the largest city in Cameroon where it is based. In return, Didier Schaub, one of the co-directors of Doual’art, paid a visit to Amsterdam to have a look at the various art institutions in the Dutch capital and also to give a public presentation about the programme of his art centre.
Doual’art is based in Bonanjo, the historic and administrative centre of Douala and site of a number of former colonial edifices. Doual’art started in 1991 on the initiative of Schaub and his wife Marylin Douala-Bell Schaub. In 1999 it moved to it’s current premises, a former cinema next to the former Royal Palace. At the time of our visit there was a show of paintings and sculptures of the Cameroonian artist Joseph-Francis Sumégné (b. 1951), who in the mid-90s was the creator a public sculpture called La Nouvelle Liberté. It was commissioned by Doual’art for one of the city’s main traffic squares, Rond Point in the Deido area, were after some initial criticism it has become the hallmark of Douala.
Doual’art’s interest in public sculpture is grounded in its mission, which is to create an enhanced consciousness of the community of Douala of their urban environment and, wherever possible, create opportunities for improvement, which would not be a bad thing considering its rather shabby looks. For the same reason Doual’art developed a tourist tour around Douala’s main monuments, which consists of a map, specially designed indication marks at circa twenty sites of historic interest and explanatory texts mounted on them – quite a unique enterprise in Africa. A relative recent art festival organized by Doual’art, called ‘Sud’ (South), saw its first edition in 2007 and is specifically targeted to local and international artists residing in, and working for, the lesser developed urban areas (i.e. most of Douala). Its next edition in 2010 will be focussed on the theme of water: Douala, probably one of the most rainy towns on the continent, is suffering from river floods due to unplanned urban growth and erosion of existing waterways and, for the same reason, in danger of shortage of clean drinking water. Symposiums as well as newspapers (Liquid Projects) have already been issued in anticipation of this festival.
www.doualart.org