Cameroon's Barthélemy Toguo museum's catching glimpse of history

Bandjoun is a small community located in the West of Cameroon. Here, far from the hustle and bustle of the city, is a cultural museum called, Bandjoun station.

It was built 10 years ago by Barthélémy Toguo, with one idea in mind: to bring into reality, the contemporary art in Cameroon.

“ The classical African art is located in the west because it was looted during colonization. But today the contemporary art is what we are doing and it cannot be stolen but purchased by Western countries.
Our politicians do nothing to keep them on the continent. Personally I can say that the world must not be blinded! There should be people who have the ideas to build a space that is likely to accommodate the contemporary art on the continent,” said Barthélémy Toguo, founder of the museum.

Barthélémy Toguo has attracted world’s attention in places like Brazil, France,the United States and Cuba by his natural captivating expose through mixing watercolor, video, sculpture and performances.

To add on his unique captivating pieces, the artist has added agricultural aspects to his artistic collections . This comes in hand with cultural aspects in the background.

Barthélemy Toguo has always been persuaded to display his community’s practices in all his arts.

“We wanted to try a plantation of coffee, harvest our coffee and then process it. we even wanted to sell in a packaging lithography, precisely to criticize the unfair trade between the north and the south. It is a way of saying that it is farmers who should fix prices for their products,” Barthélémy said.

Barthelemy Toguo has also managed to apply phrases close to the heart of people to express political, social and cultural turmoil and then stamp them onto the environment surrounding the visitor.

His drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography, performances and videos center on the people and places he has encountered in the course of his long-established career.