Collecting Practices in Bandjoun, Cameroon Thinking About Collecting As a Research Paradigm

Collecting Practices in Bandjoun, Cameroon Thinking about Collecting as a Research Paradigm

Ivan Bargna All photos by author, except where otherwise noted

he purpose of my article is to inquire about the parison which is always oriented and located somewhere, in an way that different kinds of image and object individual and collective collection experience, and in a theo- collections can construct social memory and retical and methodological background and goal. Therefore, in articulate and express social and interpersonal spite of all, the museum largely remains our starting point for relationships, dissent, and conflict. I will exam- two main reasons: firstly, because the “museum” is also found ine this topic through research carried out in in Bandjoun; and secondly, because we can use the museum the Bamileke kingdom of Bandjoun, West Cameroon, since stereotype as a conventional prototype for identifying the simi- 2002T (Fig. 1). The issues involved are to some extent analogous larities and differences that compose the always open range of to those concerning the transmission of written texts: continuity possibilities that we call “collection.” To be clear, in considering and discontinuity; translations, rewritings, and transformations; the museum as a stereotypical prototype, I do not ignore the fact political selections and deliberate omissions (Forty and Kuchler that the concept of the museum and its definition change over 1999). Nevertheless, things are not texts, and we must remain time and that every history written in terms of continuity is a sensitive to the difference between them. In spite of a wide- retrospective illusion or an ideological projection. I shall pro- spread stereotype that African societies do not preserve mate- ceed, therefore, from what is most similar to the concept of the rial culture, in the Grassfields, the West Cameroon highlands, museum, and then gradually turn towards other collecting prac- we can identify several collecting practices animated by differ- tices, trying at the same time to expand the use of the collection ent interests, motivations, and aims. In fact, the modern Western as a heuristic paradigm of research. museum is only one among many different ways of collecting and “making worlds” through the order given by the collection STRUGGLES SURROUNDING THE KINGDOM MUSEUM (Pomian 1978, Bargna 2013). The first case that I will consider is that of the kingdom The assumption that is the starting point of my article is that museum (Fig. 2): namely, a “collection” explicitly presented as a collecting is not a Western prerogative or the consequence “museum” by the legitimate possessor—the public figure of the of colonial domination, but a bundle of different, widespread, fo (king) who inherits and holds the collection, but who is not transcultural practices of shaping and representing reality. Col- the owner —and the curator who is delegated to manage it. lections are forms of concrete thinking operating through The royal treasury is the subject of special care. Many objects things, in ways that are always locally diversified. Proceeding in kept inside the museum have a sacred aura, because they are this way, I try to distance myself from the cultural stereotype of charged with ke, or “force,” a power which places them in the the “museum collection” and consider the collection in terms of sacred (Maillard 1984:131–71). The possession of certain objects what Wittgenstein called a “family resemblance”: that is, a series (such as stools and drinking horns) and their measured exhibi- of overlapping similarities, where no one feature is common to tion enable the exercise of authority through the ke they con- all. That said, we must also specify that resemblances are not in vey. In particular, the acquisition of degrees of notability and the the things themselves; rather, they emerge from an act of com- exercise of the rights attached to them is bound to the posses-

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bargna.indd 20 19/02/2016 4:07 PM 1 Kuosi society elephant masks coming out of nemo to reach the dance area located in the market place. Bandjoun, Cameroon, January 11, 2008.

sion of certain objects. They do not simply attest to the power the different attempts to take advantage of them. In this sense, in place in a symbolic way, but they make it effective (Warnier the last fifteen years in Bandjoun have been marked by a grow- 2009): their possession legitimates usurpation, while their loss ing cultural activism which has its landmarks in the restoration undermines the established power (Maillard 1984:86). If the of the Bandjoun cultural week, the rebuilding of the traditional official ideology explicitly states that the transmission of power nemo or bung die (“House of the People”), and the opening of a takes place through ascription (from father to chosen son), what new kingdom museum. happens in reality (given the conflict between fathers and sons, In 2001, therefore, during the reign of Fo Ngnie Kamga (1984– and between brothers) is that the heir, according to a commonly 2003), a new nemo (Fig. 3) was built to replace the battered accepted practice, has enough strength to succeed him (Ouden building dating back to 1960, and a new museum was created to 1987). In this context, the kingdom museum collection appears replace the one created by Fo Fotué Kamga Justin in the 1980s. as a weapon, a power-knowledge device, playing a role in the This newly created museum was sponsored by COE (Centro di political arena. Orientamento Educativo), an Italian Catholic NGO. The new The museum itself is a stratified construction in which the “House of the People,” however, was short-lived. It was burnt contributions brought from the inside and the outside are mixed down by arson, the result of disputes over the succession to the and mutually determined. That is, the social and public identity throne in January 2005, as had also happened in 1959, and then of the collection emerges at the intersection point between the was rebuilt again in 2006–2007 (Fig. 4). The fire also reached the local and the global generated by cultural heritage policies and old museum building and the few objects that were left in there,

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bargna.indd 21 19/02/2016 4:07 PM (clockwise from top left) 2 The kingdom museum of Bandjoun, located between the nemo on the left and the palace on the right. Bandjoun, Cameroon, September 22, 2011.

3 The nemo built in 2001, by the will of Fo Ngnié Kamga Joseph (1934–2003). Bandjoun, Cameroon, August 2002.

4 The new nemo built in 2006–2007 by the will of Fo Djomo Kamga Honoré, after an arson of the previous one. On the sides of the avenue connecting the market square to the nemo and the palace are located the houses of the king’s wives. Bandjoun, Cameroon, November 18, 2007.

but the new museum did not suffer any damage. Nevertheless, of reification involved in every museum and they tried to avoid this recently renovated museum has since been dismantled to it, adopting the musée vivant model, in which the objects col- make way for a new arrangement, this time promoted by French lected are taken out of the museum every time the kingdom’s cooperation. What is particularly interesting in these events is ceremonies require it. This culturally sensitive approach appar- not only the occurrence of a strong will to build, accumulate, ently also informed the exhibition setting, conceived of by the and grow shown by the king and the elites, but an intense dia- Italian architect Antonio Piva, whose intention was to valorize lectic of construction and destruction, dismantling and renewal, local materials and techniques in order to minimize differences that affected the museum collection itself. These events allow us between the inside and the outside of the museum. to move our attention from the collection as a product to the col- Why dismantle a newly built museum, conceived and made lection as a process, setting out the framework of multiple and with the involvement and agreement of the king and the elites? contrasting agencies deciding the fates of a collection, the role What did not work? Many factors played a role in this situation, played by chance, and the several antagonistic collecting para- including the presence of different development actors compet- digms present within a single collection. ing with each other in the same field, and thus the availability of The museum created by COE was part of a wider project of new financial resources, a generational change that has brought creating Grassfields kingdom museums, aimed at the preserva- to the fore a new curator, and a shift in the goals of the museum tion of local heritage and touristic development. Although COE and of its intended audience. The museum thus passed from one is directly connected to the Italian Episcopal Conference, the format, La route des chefferies, to another that was connected to project had no clear missionary intent. The museum was not the program Musée au Service du Développement, sponsored imposed by outside pressure, but rather was negotiated with by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The concept of the the king, who assured the construction of the building. More- new program’s synergy between heritage preservation and tour- over, the project included the training of local conservators and ism development was very similar to that of the previous Ital- the research directorship was entrusted to a Cameroonian aca- ian cooperation. In some ways, this was a rebranding operation demic of international renown, Professor Jean-Paul Notué, him- in which the changes in the container affected the content too. self born in Bandjoun. The curators were aware of the danger There is more, however, in that the focus of the project was the

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bargna.indd 22 19/02/2016 4:07 PM 5 The Museum of Civilizations of Dschang, sponsored by the French municipality of Nantes, is reorienting the regional geography of the kingdom museums in the Grassfields, Cameroon. September 20, 2011.

6 Flaubert Taboue Nouaye, curator of the Band- joun kingdom museum and Director of the Museum of Civilizations of Dschang, Cameroon. September 17, 2011.

construction of the large new museum of Dschang (Fig. 5), a city The attempt of Taboue Nouaye was to make the museum the in which the French municipality of Nantes sponsored an urban pivot for sustainable development, although dealing with prob- renovation project that had, until recently, remained stagnant for ably unsolvable contradictions such as the preservation of a tra- many years. This difference in fact constituted a major reorienta- dition based on secret and unequal knowledge distribution and tion of the regional geography of museums in the Grassfields, as the “democratic” need for its dissemination, the will to recover well as the balance of power, money, and visibility amongst them. cultural roots as a system of life irreducible to modernity and This shift was the result perhaps of the differences between the at the same time attempting to make the culture profitable by centralizing French tradition and the Italian ethnological tradi- turning it into a commodity. The appeal to “tradition,” in short, tion based on small community museums. appears as the best (im)possible way to get at modernity. The fact that people have to go to the museum to relearn their own tradi- COMBINING PLANNING AND BRICOLAGE tion implies not only the voluntary recovery of what was lost, but The new curator of the Bandjoun museum, Flaubert Taboue also access to that from which they were previously excluded, Nouaye, trained by both the COE and the EPA (Ecole du Patri- albeit in the impoverished form of a cultural product deprived moine Africain), and holding a degree in cultural mediation, was of all power. later appointed Director of the Dschang Museum (Fig. 6). He The Taboue Nouaye critique of the COE project becomes clear presented himself as an homme de terrain, opposing his entrepre- in the aesthetic shift from the previous setting to the new one. neurial and practical approach to the intellectual and academic one of the previous curator, Prof. Notué. In the locally focused approach extolled by the COE, Taboue Nouaye perceived an elit- ist point of view oriented to a foreign audience, as opposed to a more didactic approach aimed at spreading knowledge of tradition among new generations of Bandjoun. For this reason, the original works are now flanked by replicas as required to fill the gaps in the collection for narrative and argumentative needs. The curatorial project of Flaubert Taboue Nouaye is focused on the topics of “The Forge—Arts and Power.” This subject is intended to provide a unified interpretative approach that allows the curator to build a grand narrative of the Bandjoun community focused on the kingdom under the broader label of “Unity in Diversity.” In accordance with this ideological and pedagogi- cal aim, the exhibition is filled with information panels, pro- viding instructions for a culturally appropriate reading of the objects and images.

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bargna.indd 23 19/02/2016 4:07 PM The Italian architect Antonio Piva, charged with the layout of are quite rare because of their price. The authority of the writ- the original COE exhibition, decided to use the bamboo stalls ten word asserts the cultural importance of the objects and also he had seen at the local market as pedestals for the works on sometimes makes up for the lack of visual or ethnographic inter- display (Fig. 7). The use of local artifacts and traditional materi- est of certain objects. This latter point is especially the case for als and techniques, in his mind, was a means of approximating the Dschang Museum collection, which for the most part con- the cultural context for the objects on display, thus reducing the sists of replicas commissioned by the museum itself. distinction between the inside and the outside of the museum. Perhaps the most significant indicator of the spirit of the Although the proposal was not rejected, the locals seem never museum, combining planning and bricolage through its ability to have loved this display. To them, putting sacred and venera- to react to circumstances and seize opportunities that arise in ble objects on the lowly and mundane stands used to sell vegeta- current events, was exemplified in 2009 when the fo, the ulti- bles at the market appeared completely inappropriate. The stalls mate authority, permitted the display of a work of contempo- could be attractive only for an audience which had been fed by rary art in the core of the museum, the prestigious hall located at primitivism, arte povera, and sustainable development rhetoric. the end of the exhibition. It was a potentially disruptive monu- For the locals it was only a rude reference to their poverty and a mental installation, consisting of a pyramid of mud and soccer reversal of the hierarchic symbolism opposing the market to the balls (Fig. 9), created by the Italian artistic collective Alterazioni royal quarter. Piva, in his wish to be culturally sensitive, was in Video, a very transgressive group of art activists that I brought fact creating a clash between two different regimes of value. to Bandjoun (Bargna 2012). In their mind, it was a camouflaged The new layout of the museum seems to put things in their work, mimetically making use of local materials, techniques, and proper places. The project was confided to Sylvain Djache Nzefa, forms (the pyramid resembles the shape of the roofs of notables’ an architect born in Bandjoun but working in Nantes for many houses) in order to create an unexpected disorienting effect, years. Instead of an open space, as it was before, there is now a inserting a pop culture element into the heart of tradition in a very directed exhibition path, a sort of winding course vaguely way that might appeal to an international art world audience. reminiscent of Jean Nouvel’s sinuous “rivers” at the Quai Branly In the local context however, this artistic device seems to have museum, connecting the scenes on the “banks” (Fig. 8). The goal worked differently. Soccer is not something coming from the is not to connect the museum to the ordinary life outside, but outside, but rather a national tradition, already represented on rather to celebrate Bandjoun identity and the power of the king- the porch columns of the nemo. This motif connected in a sig- dom by means of a rich and spectacular setting, able to project nificant and accessible way the local and the global, offering an the museum on the international scene. These are traditional image of the self as able to compete in the international arena. objects displayed in an international style. The puzzling effect is not excluded, but there is nevertheless a The Bandjoun museum is actually quite an eclectic museum, culturally accessible means by which to interpret it. In 2014 the combining aesthetic glamour and a strongly didactic approach sculpture was still there, but without any label and presented as a in order to attract the students who are its main target. The over- work by a local artist. whelming presence of the texts, a little annoying for the West- All considerations so far raise the question of the relationship ern eye, is probably perceived differently in a place where books between the political-religious authority that the king exercises

7 A wooden royal bed, sculpted by Taliebu and his apprentice Dzepè, placed on a market stall used as a pedestal for works on display, as designed by the Italian architect Antonio Piva. Bandjoun kingdom museum, Cameroon, August 1, 2005.

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bargna.indd 24 19/02/2016 4:07 PM Within the kingdom, the museum is also used, as in the case of the nemo, to reassert the unity of a heterogeneous community around the power of the monarchy. The scientific authority and international visibility granted by the recent renovations offers the kingdom an additional resource, although with the required acceptance of some compromises and risks. In effect, this project alters the royal treasury, or at least its visible part. Rigorous selec- tion on the basis of international artistic and ethnographic criteria, in the case of Jean-Paul Notué’s project, rejected a large quantity of objects, mainly gifts and souvenirs collected by different fo over time. In this way, the scientific care involved in identifying and selecting a collection of high-quality objects produced a model of “authenticity” that has become normative for the fo himself. The king, however, gains an advantage from this because the same scientific care, over the collection and the effective power and knowledge of for example, also brought to the center many objects dissemi- the curators managing it on a daily basis. The role of the cura- nated throughout the kingdom. The curatorial desire to elevate tor is legitimized by the king, who retains the final word on what the standard of the museum’s collection and to conserve in a safe can be accepted into or must be rejected from the collection; place objects otherwise menaced by thefts and termites resulted in but in practical terms, the discretionary power of the curator is important political ramifications. Bringing power-charged objects very broad and goes beyond simple executive functions. He has to the center meant that the local political equilibrium was altered specific knowledge of “art” and “tradition” that the fo, Djomo between the fo and the subordinated chiefs, who are indeed very Kamga Honoré (Fig. 10), educated as a chemist, lacks. resolute on keeping their autonomy and prerogatives. It is no won- The king employs the museum as a weapon in his ongoing der, then, that in fact very few objects were given to the museum. competition with Bandjoun’s powerful neighbor, the Foumban The majority of such objects continue to be kept in compound Sultanate (Geary 1984), and with the other Bamileke kingdoms. shrines, used in rituals and usually kept invisible (Fig. 11).

8 The new exhibition path of the kingdom museum of Bandjoun, designed by the architect Sylvain Djache Nzefa. Bandjoun, Cameroon, Sep- tember 22, 2011.

9 Contemporary art is entering the kingdom museum collection: Monument à l’unité et à la fra- ternité des peuples, installation made by the Ital- ian artists of Alterazioni Video. Bandjoun kingdom museum, Cameroon, September 22, 2011.

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bargna.indd 25 19/02/2016 4:08 PM MAKING DIFFERENT: DIVERGING COLLECTING PRACTICES The king’s collection, therefore, is not the only collection in Bandjoun, but is one of several different collections present in the village. We can distinguish two kinds of “collection”: sets of objects and sculptures connected to family cults of the ancestors, and other, more individually oriented collections that constitute sorts of cabinets of curiosities or private museums, set up by the nouveau riche of Bandjoun. These three interrelated kinds of “collection” present a network of differences and similarities that allow us, at least in part, to leave the kingdom museum and see it as one of the local possible collecting practices. The kingdom museum itself is not entirely an import from abroad fill- ing a local void, but rather it imposes itself upon a preexisting form of collection known in French as les choses du pays (“things of the country,” or the treasury of the kingdom) that is stored in the so-called grenier du roi (“the king’s granary”), a building permanently warmed in order to preserve the objects from humidity and insect attacks. From this point of view, it is con- tiguous to objects and sculptures gathered in the family houses

10 The fo, Djomo Kamga Honoré, in his traditional costume and with his royal flyswatter, during the celebrations for the end of the construction work of the new nemo. Bandjoun, Cameroon, November 1, 2008.

11 Chief Wabo Tekam in front of his shang (the house in which the ancestors’ skulls are preserved) showing some of the objects kept inside. Bandjoun, December 2009. Photo: Alterazioni Video

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bargna.indd 26 19/02/2016 4:08 PM 12 Prof. Kaptué Lazare’s villa entrance hall: collected objects and paintings, pictures, décor, and architectural ornaments make up a scene to impress the guests. Bandjoun, Cameroon, November 2, 2008.

(dshang) that preserve the skulls of the family ancestors. All um’s display, is an important aspect of the collection’s display, these sets of objects can be considered “collections” to the extent increasing the “symbolic capital” of the owner (Bourdieu 1979). that they have been assembled and preserved in a special place, Through heterogeneous things collected during their life, these establishing relationships between themselves that are not ran- people display their “modernity” and social success (Rowland dom, receiving special care, and being handed down to succes- 2002), writing their autobiography by means of exotic objects, sors. To say that collections existed in the past and continue to often souvenirs, gifts, and photographs, and the appropriation exist in Cameroon, and elsewhere in Africa, is not to deny the of traditional symbols and ornaments long ago reserved for the differences with the concept of the museum. For example, the king. These heterogeneous objects speak about the life of their high level of replaceability of the objects, the lack of importance owners, witnessing their travels, jobs, or political careers and the attributed to their age, and the scant attention to their preserva- important persons they have known. The nexus which connects tion, by Western standards in any case, are significant deviations. them, the principle of the intelligibility of the collection, resides In different parts of Bandjoun it is also possible to find nou- in the biography of the collector, in his connections with these veau riche people, bourgeois who made their fortunes in the city objects and the experiences they evoke. or abroad, presenting themselves as collectors and their collec- This is probably true also for an another kind of collection: the tions as private museums. In this case, the accurate exhibition collection of contemporary art located in the new cultural cen- of objects collected, either as an integral part of the house’s fur- ter of Bandjoun Station, created by Barthelemy Toguo, an artist niture (Fig. 12) or in a building expressly built to mimic a muse- of international renown based in Paris, but born in Cameroon

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bargna.indd 27 19/02/2016 4:08 PM 13 Bandjoun Station, a cultural center for contemporary arts, created by Barthelemy Toguo, an international artist born in Cameroon and living in Paris. Bandjoun, Cameroon, June 3, 2014.

(Bargna 2008). This center, whose architecture makes reference connecting, at the same time, contemporary art and traditional to the local style but also is distinct from all the other buildings culture. A work of Toguo, donated by the artist, is expected to be around, is devoted to the production, collection, and exhibition placed in the kingdom museum.2 of contemporary art (Fig. 13). It brings to Bandjoun another kind of collection and display, different from those already in place. LOOKING AT THE HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE AS A Bandjoun Station is equipped with a library, a video room, DISPUTED COLLECTION and rooms for both a permanent collection and temporary exhi- In the last part of my article I would like to extend my per- bitions of contemporary art. Barthelemy Toguo intends for his spective on the collection by using this paradigm in the analy- center to work both as an international workshop and a cultural sis of the nemo, an architectural artifact that we usually do not center open to the people of Bandjoun. It is neither a nostalgic consider in these terms. The nemo, located in the royal quarter return to African roots, nor the simple transposition of a West- of Bandjoun (Bargna 2005), is the heart or, in Bamileke terms, ern institution elsewhere. It is rather an expression of a specific the “stomach” of Bandjoun. It is considered the innermost part sensibility of the place—a reshaping of the artist’s travel experi- of the kingdom. The nemo is the assembly-room of the “council ences around the world, on the basis of what the specific place of the nine” (mkamvu’u), that is the political and religious organ demands and suggests; in this regard, Bandjoun Station repre- that assists the fo in his rule. sents a “zone of contact” (Clifford 1997:188–219) and transit in The nemo is presented as a house built by the people and for which the relationship between the local and the global has to the people. Nobody is to be excluded from the nemo’s construc- be interpreted in terms of their complex interconnectivity. The tion and everyone is expected to take part in it, either through permanent collection housed at the third floor of the building work or by giving money. Not only are the people resident in renders Toguo’s design: it is not a collection of his artworks, but the kingdom involved, but also those who have migrated to the the result of the exchanges he has been making with other art- great Cameroonian towns of Douala and Yaounde, or abroad to ists and collectors over the years: a collection of international Europe or the US (Fig. 15). The nemo maintains a sense of local art, aiming to avoid “the pitfall of the ‘African art ghetto’.”1 Some belonging in connection to the global (Bargna 2006). The nemo, agricultural projects created by the artist are also presented as a of course, is a building, and it may seem arbitrary to speak about way to connect visiting artists and local people, putting together it in terms of collection. At the most, it appears to be a container symbolic and social aims (Fig. 14). for possibly housing a collection. In reality, there is nothing Bandjoun Station is a work in progress and we cannot say any- inside the nemo at all. The sanctuary is empty. thing about its future, but it will be interesting to observe how I propose nevertheless to regard the sculpted posts on the out- this artistic milieu, this “station” where travellers from all around side of the nemo as a sort of “permanent collection,” hosted in the world will arrive, will affect all the other collections existing the exterior of the sanctuary, instead of treating them as part of in Bandjoun. Similarly, how will Bandjoun Station be affected an architectural artifact provided with an intrinsic unity. As a by them? Significantly, the opening of Bandjoun Station awaited collection, the images sculpted on the posts compose an ensem- the inauguration of the new nemo, which took place in Novem- ble put together by one or more discourses or narratives. They ber 2008, recognizing in this way the authority of the king and are located in a strategic order of discourse, and they are used in

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bargna.indd 28 19/02/2016 4:08 PM 14 The artist Barthelemy Toguo in front of one of his maisons d’artiste, built in the fields near the several different kinds of collections marked by conflict. The Bandjoun Station cultural center. Bandjoun, Camer- oon, October 29, 2008. materiality of the carved poles, the apparent architectural unity of the artifact, and its “monumentality” allow the “public tran- 15 The Bandjoun elites gathered in front of the script” to assert itself as the dominant discourse but, at the same nemo during the celebrations for the end of the construction work of the new nemo. Bandjoun, Cam- time, the indeterminacy of the image lets several “hidden tran- eroon, November 1, 2008. scripts” (Scott 1990) survive and express themselves in a subor- dinate and marginal way. All of these transcripts are on display but not equally visibile. Within the nemo’s many different “collections,” the principles inspiring the official collection are those supporting the cultural individual and collective tactics aimed at enforcing or eluding identity of the Bandjoun’s kingdom and its historical memory. the dominant narratives. They are, at the same time, the expres- The origin of the nemo very probably goes back to the colo- sion of the established order and an accidental accumulation of nial period. Its “tradition” would be a strategic response given “objects,” heterogeneous in their content and origin. by the elite menaced by the advance of modernity (Malaquais What we can see in the iconography of the nemo is a collection 2002:344–46). It is an invented tradition, but less a reaction than of images that continually surpasses both the plan of the cura- an attempt to domesticate modernity by a ruling class in search tor and of its political patronage, i.e., the king and the elites sur- of a local way to assert its “conservative modernism” (Warnier rounding him. Post hoc interpretations of this iconography are 1993:28). In the 1980s, these practices of remaking the tradition often aimed at reducing dissonances and contradictions between were once again taken up by the urbanized bourgeoisie, which the official political stances and the divergent visions of indi- acquired the traditional titles sold by the fo. It is the fo himself viduals and groups pursuing their particular interests and aims who brings together the different roles of businessman, tradi- (Bargna 2007). It is not only a question of the difference between tional king, and local administrator in the Cameroon Republic. theory and reality, speech and images, immateriality and mate- In this context, the images “collected” on the posts have usu- riality, agency and objectification, planned intentions and effec- ally been the figures of the fo’s ancestors, which in a visible form tive results (Miller 2005:1–50), but a conflict between differently connected the present and the past, the hereditary king and his oriented practices situated in a field of power and knowledge community. At least, this is what happened until 2001, when the relationships. The posts do not constitute a collection, but rather images of two jazz musicians (Fig. 16), a football player (Fig. 17),

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bargna.indd 29 19/02/2016 4:08 PM Pope John Paul II, an envoy of the World Bank with a bag full of money (Fig. 18), and some kings dressed in jackets and ties appeared on the front of building. If the nemo in its own historical origin has always been a point of connection between “tradition” and “modernity,” the local and the global, what was new in the 2001 nemo was the explicit presence of modernity in the presumed core of tradition. In attempting to understand these changes, we have to shift our analysis from the collection as a product to the collection as a process. Gaining a diachronic perspective on the nemo also allows us to recognize the role played by chance in determining the different choices and decisions taken by the actors involved and their effective connections. In other words, what is the contingent dimension of the reality that the artifact—in its apparent stability, resulting from its materiality and the presumed coherence of its pattern—tends to dis- guise, in this way transforming chance into necessity? In this manner we will be able to discern other antagonistic collecting paradigms.

GLOBAL MEDIASCAPES AND ARTIST AGENCY If Roger Milla (the football player) and Manu Dibango (the jazz musician) began to appear on the nemo in 2001, it was due to a concatenation of circumstances, none of which, taken sepa- rately, was either sufficient or necessary in itself. The king was sick and forced to stay in Paris for medical treatment. The temporary weakness of power provided an opportunity for some artists, Tzuakou Innocent in particular (Fig. 19), to express themselves more freely. Through his unforeseeable action, global mediascapes and mass culture, such as football, jazz, consumption goods, and advertising, appeared in the context of the representation of “tradition” codified by the elite. Without this contingent combination of necessity, intention, and chance, we probably never would have seen such massive iconographic changes affecting the “House of the People” in 2001. This temporary weakness of power, the void created by the fo’s illness, is the reason why the ancestors were placed on the sides of the building, while footballers and musicians are on the front. This arrangement marks the advance of young, market-oriented artists and the withdrawal of the old ones, artists of the palace among them. When Tzuakou had the chance, he deliberately used the “sacred house” as a shop window for his business. His purpose was to shift the center of attention to himself, as is clearly expressed by his signature and address directly sculpted on the posts, probably for the first time in the history of the nemo. So we continue to have a “collection” in the nemo, but

16 The Cameroonian jazz musician Manu Dibango and the singer André-Marie Talla, born in Bandjoun, were on the poles of the nemo built in 2001; popular culture entered the nemo thanks to a coup de main made by the artist Innocent Tzuakou. Bandjoun, Cameroon, August 9, 2003.

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bargna.indd 30 19/02/2016 4:08 PM based on different criteria. New artistic and commercial criteria are superposed upon and contradict the political-religious ones established by the kingship, creating two different “regimes of value” (Appadurai 1986:3–63). At first glance these two concep- tions respond to different sets of “objects” that we can charac- terize as “traditional” and “popular art” (Barber 1987). In reality, however, their identities are not fixed; rather, they constitute uninterrupted negotiations depending on the effective power relations in place at a particular moment in time. When the kingship resumed its prerogatives with the installation of a new king in 2004, the official transcript was restored by virtue of a reinterpretation of the extant imagery. The reinterpretation was the responsibility of specific individuals delegated to this role: the curator of the museum and the servants working at the palace as tourist guides. But if Tzuakou paid no attention to the symbolic constraints connected to the nemo, his action is not solely the trivial exter- nalization of his immediate purposes and casual circumstances. It also responds to a personal conception of the world, con- fusedly animated by a political critique, that intersects in part with the needs and wishes of certain segments of Bandjoun’s population. In this reflective and significant aspect, the images sculpted by Tzuakou respond to discernable principles which assemble a real collection of images of modernity in both its positive and negative aspects. The stylistic changes introduced by Tzuakou, his mimetic and expressive realism (“the old artists made statues, we make persons,” he says) strike the collective unity emphasized by the nemo and underline a disintegrating appropriation of it. His style abandons the traditional frontality and symmetry of the figures in favor of moving characters, also 17 The football player Roger Milla portrayed by the portrayed in profile or from behind. The figures are no longer artist Innocent Tzuakou on a pole of the nemo built reproduced according to repetitive modules, one over the other in 2001. Milla is grasping a bottle of Guinness (the brewery is the sponsor of the “Indomitable Lions,” along the pole; rather, they interact with each other to com- the national football team). Bandjoun, Cameroon, pose scenes or small narrative sequences. These characters seem August 9, 2003. go beyond the bounds imposed by the log and enter the outside world. This is in particular the case of the figures sculpted with an outstretched arm projecting laterally from the pole—a style introduced in the nemo by Tzuakou in 2001 (Fig. 20) that reappeared in the nemo built in 2006 (Fig. 21), also taken up by another artist, Taffe Mogué Ladislas. Through his images, Tzuakou suggests different models of identification based on individual success and an alternative to the rhetoric of unanimity previously supported by the nemo. What actually appears here is nothing more than the other face of the Bamileke ethos: the individualistic, competitive, and entrepreneurial side of their society. What is embarrassing why the football player grasps a bottle of beer in his hand. about it, for the “public transcript,” is only its presence in the Tzuakou had pasted a Guinness label on the bottle, hoping for building that ideologically asserts the complementary side of a reward from the Cameroon Breweries. If he has conceived all collective unanimity. this as a real possibility, it is because of the widespread presence Mediascapes enter the nemo by means of Tzuakou Innocent’s of mediascapes in the daily life of the people. In particular, in the imagery and aims, first of all in the form of advertising. Not only case of beer and football, we have two of the most appreciated did he try to use his participation in the building of the nemo consumer goods of Cameroon (Diduk 1993). Moreover, their to create a market for himself, but in a more substantial way, he matching in the post is not fortuitous, because their connection chose his subjects in order to draw a financial advantage from has been already established by Cameroonian advertising. The the persons he portrayed. It is for this reason that, in a rather beer firms with their posters and trucks are everywhere, spon- ingenuous way, he decided to represent VIPs such as Roger soring football matches as well as royal burials. Nevertheless, the Milla, Manu Dibango, and so on. This objective also explains direct display of the Guinness label on the sacred house was considered inappropriate, and so it was removed.

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bargna.indd 31 19/02/2016 4:08 PM COLLECTING AS AN OPEN PROCESS Our attempt to interpret the nemo as a form of collection seems to have its limitations in the fact that the collecting practice ends when the posts are put in place and the house is built. This limitation, however, concerns more our ways of defining the object than an inherent feature of the object in itself. In fact, we can continue to see the nemo as a process, and not simply as a product, beyond the term of its construction as a single artifact. The nemo is involved in a larger dialectic of creation and destruction, which finds in iconoclasm a quite extreme possibility offered to opponents to manifest their dissent in an anonymous but clearly visible way (Goody 1997). In this perspective, for example, the burning of the nemo does not appear as a mere accident, but rather as a recurring event motivated by political aims and personal interests. These motivations find a way to express themselves by contesting and renewing the criteria and content inspiring the nemo’s image collection. In the new nemo built in 2006–2007, after arson destroyed the former one in January 2005, a new orientation was imposed upon the carved posts. The rebuilding of the nemo (Fig. 22) became both a tool and an expression of the restoration of the social order, so that the images have again become strictly disciplined. For the artists, it was more difficult to find their own space. This time there was a coherent plan, arranged by the young curator of the kingdom’s museum, itself recently renovated by the COE. The main concern was for the nemo to provide the Bandjoun people, the youth above all, a sort of visible handbook to manage the basis of “tradition.” The political purpose of the nemo in this way took a didactic form. The model was “the book,” meaning both catalogue, as the iconography of the building is animated by the concern to offer an inventory of the main elements of tradition, and narrative, as the scenes that tend to prevail over single characters often require reading as a narrative sequence (Fig. 23). This time, the writing on the nemo therefore appears in the form of both a logical constraint which imposes a disciplined order on the whole composition and captions directly sculpted on the posts. Now the “collection” begins to refer explicitly to the art world, as it originated in the West and then spread all around the globe. Most likely this connection is not something absolutely novel because, as is well known, a great percentage of West African royal art is in its origin the result of political interactions between local and colonial powers (Bargna 2000). Today this nexus takes a different and more programmatic form by making reference to global issues concerning world heritage, cultural identity displayed by the museums, and the international art market. In this context, the canon is provided by Western catalogues, which arrive in Bandjoun as photocopies, and by photographs often downloaded from the Internet or drawn from magazines, Encarta cd-rom, and the Larousse Dictionary. A catalogue, however, already exists in Bandjoun. It is the catalogue of the royal museum located between the nemo and the king’s palace (Notué and

18 Pope John Paul II and an envoy of the World Bank coming in Bandjoun with a bag full of money, portrayed by the artist Innocent Tzuakou on a pole of the nemo built in 2001. Bandjoun, Cameroon, August 9, 2003.

19 The artist Innocent Tzuakou sculpting a pole of the nemo. Bandjoun, Cameroon, August 2005.

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bargna.indd 32 19/02/2016 4:08 PM 20 Representation of a Kuosi society elephant mask, with an outstretched arm projecting from the pole. This stylistic trait introduced by Tzuakou of the “Other,” the past takes an objective and detached form, Innocent appeared also in the figure of the football increasing the gap between the past and the present. In this way player Roger Milla, portrayed on another pole. Band- the nemo tends to become part of a heritage to be enjoyed in joun, Cameroon, August 9, 2003. terms of “culture.” This phenomenon, however, does not prevent 21 Pope Benedict XVI blessing the believers; the the nemo from continuing to be used in its customary way as a stylistic trait of the arm projected out of the pole, sanctuary. For most people, the nemo (as well as the kingdom introduced in 2001 by Tzuakou Innocent, has been reused in the new nemo built in 2006–2007. Band- museum) is still not a place to go visit. joun, Cameroon, September 22, 2011. In most cases, the photographs driving the artists in their work are collected and furnished by the curator. But in the case of Tzuakou, it is the artist himself who collects and proposes his images. The collection paradigm determines the artistic creation Triaca 2005). itself. On the one hand, when sculpting “traditional” masks, In addition to a neo-traditional oleographic style elevated Tzuakou mostly takes his models from photocopies of interna- to a politically correct model, marked by a moderate natural- tional exhibition catalogues of African art. On the other hand, ism and conventional rural life subjects, we can assist at the when he is portraying “real people,” i.e., identifiable individu- re proposition of the “traditional,” prototypical style of the art als, he draws his models from magazines, the Internet, and TV. of Bandjoun in the replicas of the posts of Taliebu (Fig. 24), an Tzuakou has no access to the international art market, but he artist who was born at the end of nineteenth century and died thinks of himself as a contemporary artist, while having only a in the 1960s (Notué and Triaca 2005:100–101). In this case, the vague idea of what international contemporary art is. It is inter- attempt to preserve or rediscover tradition goes together with a esting to remark that the curator and the artists agree about the more global perspective. In fact, the “traditional,” the so-called use of pictures as models for sculpture, although they do so for classical style that, as the curator contends, “has made Bandjoun different reasons. A photograph of a king, for example, makes famous all around the world,”3 is more the result of museum it easier for the artists to achieve their aim of figurative realism exhibitions than the product of Bandjoun itself. What is really and provides the curator with an accurate representation of his- happening is that through this quotation of themselves by means torical regalia. Once again, two different and competitive logics

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bargna.indd 33 19/02/2016 4:08 PM 22 The reconstruction works of the nemo, after the arson that destroyed the building on January 20, 2005. Bandjoun, Cameroon, May 11, 2006.

23 The pole sculpted by Tzuakou Innocent, telling of the arson that hit the nemo in 2005. Moving from bottom to up, the scenes make up the narrative sequence: from the alarm to the failed attempts to extinguish the fire, and the planned construction of water tanks. A temporal order, this time a historical frame, is also present in other poles: the one representing the chronological succession of the kings of Bandjoun, and the other marking the different stages of the penetration of Christianity in the kingdom. Bandjoun, Cameroon, November 18, 2007.

intersect in the same content, finding a tactical convergence. The use of photographs as models is certainly a strong constraint, but artists retain the power to change imagery without the risk of explicit disobedience, simply in translating the surfaces into vol- umes. The enrichment in subjects (football players, musicians, etc.) introduced by Tzuakou is not completely removed but partially reconverted into a useful means of illustrating in an encyclope- dic way the different aspects of tradition and its connection with the present and the changing world. Moreover, some aspects that, in the previous nemo, were perceived as a transgression, now, through their repetition in the new building, tend to appear as the starting point of a new tradition. The crucial point in the final result is the arrangement of the posts around the building that put the “collection” in its own effective display. The curator clearly emerges as both an authority and an author, while the artists’ powers of negotiation are eliminated once they have finished their work. That said, Tzuakou has tried to influence the choice by appropriating the bigger logs to carve, as those are more likely to be placed on the front of the building. If it is possible to accord some freedom to the artists, it is because the effective meaning of their “words” depends in a large part on their place in the “text” of the spatial arrangement, whether in front or behind, on the sides, near the doors or far from them, and so on. In the case

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bargna.indd 34 19/02/2016 4:08 PM 24 A pole made by Tcheudjo Jean-Michel, sculpted in the style of Taliebu, an artist born at the end of nineteenth century and died in the 1960s. His style is recognized and promoted by the kingdom museum curator as the prototypical traditional style of Band- joun, and for this reason it has been reintroduced in the nemo. Bandjoun, Cameroon, November 18, 2007.

25 The football players Samuel Eto and Didier Drogba playing a match. They are recognizable by their features and, in the case of Eto, by his name engraved on his shirt (together with the Nike logo and the Barcelona FC emblem); the whole scene is placed by the artist Tzuakou Innocent under the map of the world and the term mondialisation (globalization). Bandjoun, Cameroon, November 18, 2007.

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bargna.indd 35 19/02/2016 4:08 PM 26 Pole devoted to the mask tseah. The mask has not danced in Bandjoun for many years, but its reputation in African arts catalogues has attracted the attention of artist Tzuakou Innocent. Bandjoun, Cameroon, September 22, 2011.

27 The pole dedicated at the mask tseah clearly reveals the collector point of view embraced by the artist and the curator: as in a mug shot, the mask is seen from all sides, also showing its internal part, the side you’ll never see when the mask is dancing. Bandjoun, Cameroon, September 22, 2011.

of Tzuakou’s new post displaying football players (Fig. 25), one of his personal favorites, the presence of this subject matter is now legitimized by the post already displayed in the old nemo. But the post continues to be embarrassing to the curator, particularly because the players are not generic representations, but rather particular players who are easily recognizable. The post has, therefore, been included in the nemo, but placed on a side, in a minor position. The nemo seems to have become more and more like a sort of museum which expresses in a material way the supposed union between the fo and his subjects and offers an image of Bandjoun’s cosmology to the world. The nemo is planned as a sort of catalogue and intended to end in a published catalogue destined to

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bargna.indd 36 19/02/2016 4:09 PM accomplish the task, in glossing the speech that the architectonic look at the actual practices developed by the local actors, we do text has begun. The collector point of view is especially clear in not find any logical contradiction, but rather a wide array of pos- the pole dedicated at the mask tseah (Figs. 26–27): as in a mug sible experiences depending on the different locations of persons shot, the mask is seen from all sides, also showing its internal and groups in the local power and knowledge relationships and part, the side you’ll never see when the mask is in action. the consequent unequal access to objects and places. Seen in this All these phenomena are an integral part in the “production of perspective, the relationships between sacred and profane do not the local” (Appadurai 1996:178–200) in which Grassfields king- appear as a dichotomy. For many people, the palace museum doms are engaged, and they cannot be interpreted as a linear remains a secret, invisible, and precluded world, whose role is to passage from “religion” to “culture,” from “sacred” to “profane.” exert a function of “containment,” creating a material armature In effect, it would be wrong to see the relationships between (blindage) which allows us to master invisible worlds through the nemo and the local museum in terms of a mere opposition. visible means and vice versa (Rowland 2011). Differently from the images collected in the nemo that are not sacred in themselves (no worship is addressed to them) although Ivan Bargna is Professor of Aesthetic Anthropology at University of Milan Bicocca and Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Bocconi University. He they contribute to create the sacred atmosphere of the place by is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the MUDEC—Museum of their dramatically visible presence, many objects kept inside the Cultures in Milan. Since 2001, he has been carrying out his ethnographic museum keep their ke, their force and sacred aura. What we are research in Cameroon’s Grassfields, where he studies arts, visual culture, remarking on is apparently a sort of displacement between the and food practices. Among his topics are the relationships between anthro- container and the content, a distance between the institution pological ethnography and artistic practices. He is the author of a number and the objects collected inside. On the one hand, the nemo is of publications including African Art (Milan 1998 , St. Léger Vauban 1998; a sacred context bearing profane images. On the other hand, the New York and London, 2000; Madrid 2000) and Africa (Milan 2007, Ber- museum is a profane context containing sacred objects. But if we lin 2008, Los Angeles, 2009). [email protected].

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