Performance art, another part of me

By Christian ETONGO *

 

 

Far from being an ephemeral art , performance is my breath of life, a way of thinking , of seeing things , to live.

As I have often said , refers me to perform my being when I need to create a work, I should feel inside of this work, part of it , then nothing can separate me from the matter, my body, my mind, my mind , my unconsciousness , my subconscious while I'm human is an integral and inseparable part of the work.

   I think between me and my art there are no boundaries , just like my life and I are One, I am my work

I always said I could not do anything other than performance because for me it is more of an art that is action , therefore I am not artist, as found activists in politics, I am actionnist , I use my life, my art to denounce the evils of society, biensur not give lessons to anyone , it is true that from time to time I stop to admire the beauty of life , love , joy , but it's like sleeping for me, because I have to wake up and scream the misery of this world to which I belong .

       My fight is to promote the art of performance in Cameroon, I think hard enough I'm on the right track , although the road is still long, I think I reach my goal , the more difficult is not , do not live my art , but it is to accept my work that remains misunderstood by the general public.

Early recognition for me is my time at the University of Yaounde I during my two brilliant presentations on performance in 2011 or students arts and teachers have welcomed me and considered a person resource, which has made me aware of the work that I shot in fifteen years of artistic practice , as it is a self-taught first major victory .

 

Director of Visual Arts Dating Yaoundé ( RAVY ), Serge Olivier Fokoua , Goethe Institut Kamerun and its director Dr. Irene Bark has boosted my career, and brought it international .

In 1997, during a workshop in Yaoundé that I meet Pascale Marthine Tayou Cameroonian visual artist known in Europe , I already mounted then shows mixing dance and painting, and it was he who made me realize that I'm working on an art called pERFORMANCE, he took me documents about this art and the stage is set , I decided that I will only performance begins extensive research leading to a promising result.

 

The performance is a new and misunderstood art, it took me a parallel career to live and perform my searches:

"For Christian Etongo , it is impossible to live art performance in Cameroon. However, he admits that his practice has given him the insight to get some foreign institutions fund its artistic research ... "( Stephanie Dongmo , Africultures April 2012)