Maroua, Honey, Mythology. Or the mythopoetics of going back to ones roots

Cameroonian painter, sculptor and performance artist Alioum
Moussa takes us on a journey in this episode of „Die Erde spricht
/ The Earth is Sepaking“. An acoustic journey from his home in
Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, to Maroua, his birthplace in
the far north of the country – and on a journey to the
foundations of his poetics. Why make art? For whom? And from
what? Questions that – as Alioum Moussa’s sound art essay makes
clear – cannot be separated if art is to be meaningful.


„Mythopoetic“ – that’s what Alioum Moussa calls the approach of
his art. It consists in drawing energy for his own work from
myths and mythically charged materials such as beeswax, honey or
soil that are meaningful to him and the people around him. An
approach that Joseph Beuys also advocated and that seems to be
becoming increasingly important in Africa, at least in Cameroon.