Aujourd’hui was the first exhibition of contemporary art in the Musée National du Cameroun in Yaoundé which had been recently refurbished. The show, curated by Simon Njami, featured established Cameroonian contemporary artists (Barthélémy Toguo, Pascal Martine Tayou, Billy Bidjoka) and emerging ones. I was fortunate to visit Cameroon while the exhibition was on and visited the museum on a Sunday, with the huge rooms of the former presidential palace all to myself. Mamma Alim Ahmed, a friend and organizer of the exhibition, kindly put me in touch with Bienvenue Fotso Gunsi and Aurélie Djiena, two of the young artists selected for the exhibition. Bienvenue’s work – La Croisée des Chemins – an evocation of the toll that nature pays to progress and economic development was among those exhibited.
Soon after, Covid-19 struck, preventing another trip to Cameroon. The beginning of the pandemic was especially hard on artists. It was also a period of forced retreat and for some new inspiration. We talked to Bienvenue to ask her a commission. Her work on our relationship with nature, and notably as a source of medicinal cures felt quite relevant when nature was throwing a vicious and lethal virus at us. This is how Invasion was added to the collection.
