Barthélémy Toguo, Caring for memory

Barthélémy Toguo
Caring for memory, 2023
Bronze
240 x 220 x 230 cm
Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co. (Paris) and Bandjoun Station (Bandjoun)

The work Caring For Memory has as its theme the commemoration of the abolition of slavery. According to Barthélémy Toguo, these commemorations should be accompanied by actions and works dedicated to the memory of the victims. This sculpture is therefore conceived as a tribute. It combines two recurring motifs in the artist's practice: the tree and the hand, reaching for the sky. Caring For Memory rises like a hybrid structure, both plant and human, evoking the victims of slavery. In a gesture of imploration or emancipation, it can be interpreted more broadly as a quest for freedom, a desire to inhabit the Earth and share it without enslaving it.

Born in 1967 in Mbalmayo, Cameroon. Lives and works between Paris, France, and Bandjoun, Cameroon. Barthélémy Toguo is deeply committed to access to art and food self-sufficiency in Cameroon, where he has been developing the Bandjoun Station project since 2005, comprising farmland, artist residencies and exhibition spaces. A multi-disciplinary artist working in textiles, ink and ceramics, he is committed to opposing any idea of domination of man by man, or of nature by man. Barthélémy Toguo claims the fundamental right to inhabit the Earth and live with dignity.