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THE WAL S SONGS OF PATRICK WILLOCQ
THE WAL S SONGS OF PATRICK WILLOCQ
In the equatorial forest of Congo DRC certain Pygmy women first time mothers live in seclusion with their children in the midst of other women who are responsible for their well being They are called Wal s which means nursing mothers During the time of their seclusion they must create a performance of dances and songs for the big day their liberation For several years now I have been translating the songs of the Wal s into images as closely as possible to the experience of these young mothers actresses who are fully involved in my process and thus attempt to pierce the mysteries of this tremendously symbolic rite of passage
In the equatorial forest of Congo DRC certain Pygmy women first time mothers live in seclusion with their children in the midst of other women who are responsible for their well being They are called Wal s which means nursing mothers During the time of their seclusion they must create a performance of dances and songs for the big day their liberation For several years now I have been translating the songs of the Wal s into images as closely as possible to the experience of these young mothers actresses who are fully involved in my process and thus attempt to pierce the mysteries of this tremendously symbolic rite of passage
Azu Nwagbogu THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT RITUALS AND SURREALISM Mondher Kilani argues that the anthropologist on the ground knows that for his ethnographic journey to be successful the natives must disturb and fascinate him simultaneously This is why he beats them to the draw and equips himself with an ethnographic pen and the will to invent the possible Kilani s L invention de l autre 1995 like other texts of postmodern anthropologic literature unveils the strategies of construction of alterity that dominate the ethnographic discipline of which the aesthetics of the difference and the exoticising gaze are fundamental ingredients As our social history teaches the colonial enterprise lies in this primogenial idea of the impenetrability of the other displayed by the ethnographic approach which prepares the terrain for first its helping hand then dependence then subjugation conquest domestication and consumption Like the early ethnographers Willocq is fascinated and enchanted by the way of life of the Ekonda Bantus and Pygmies of the Democratic Republic of Congo For their part the Ekonda were initially less interested by another curious white man concerned with making pictures of life in the Congo jungles I first met Patrick when he was at the early stages of his fascination at that time it was the landscape and unspoiled nature of the Congo that intrigued him He made the most brilliant aesthetic juxtapositions in his debut photo essay aptly titled Bikoro Huts which was largely a tribute to the beauty of the unspoiled habitat of the Ekonda of the DR Congo For Willocq the road was a journey of self discovery The landscape and intricately sculpted design objects were his primary interest and focus the people were secondary considerations Unlike South Africa apartheid era photographs and paintings that represented an absent terrain devoid of people as though to suggest that colonialists where discoverers of a new territory Willocq s reluctance to photograph the locals was delayed until he in his words earned the right and their trust When he did photograph them there was an effort to shift the gaze away from the difference and toward common shared values between the communities The focus was clearly away from the classical ethnographic gaze about how different they were from the established cultural and physical normativity but more about how similar and ordinary it was to observe them The colours and sensibility betrayed a man laden with a tangible wistfulness I soon learned from Patrick that he moved to the DR Congo in his words at the age of six when your 20 Azu Nwagbogu mind starts opening to the world and he left aged twelve only to return twenty seven years later to reinvent himself as an artist disillusioned with his previous life as a corporate mogul Patrick stresses that the essence of his being was fundamentally shaped during those six years in the DR Congo and that he felt the urge to reconnect with his early youth in his state of disenfranchisement However as his interest and understanding grew so too did his confidence and friendship with the Pygmies of the DR Congo He starts learning about their very secretive rituals and spends up to three months at a stretch in the Congo jungles It is endearing to witness the seriousness of his gullible honesty of belief in the veracity of tales that the locals share about their mythologies He settles himself in the darkness of the African jungle and turns his exoticising gaze toward the female ritual of the Wal breastfeeding mothers mostly practiced amongst Pygmies in the Ekonda territory of the northern region of the DRC He interrogates himself on the distance between himself and the object of his artistic research and ethnographic inquietude But unlike contemporary postmodern anthropologists Patrick s confidence in his artistic means and friendship reshapes the community It keeps him from fearing the problematics that rise from his authorial position as an artist and ethnographer or from the regimes of fiction at play in the images he is about to create He is flattered by the title le fr re des Wal s the brother of the Wal s conferred upon him Like the participant observer he finds his native informants and collaborators who help him to set up a scenography in which native female actors parody themselves and their rituality in front of his camera As the artist says toute cette nergie est orient e vers un seul but la photo all this energy is focused toward the same objective the photograph The collective effort results in a playful colourful mise en scene devoid of any descriptive claim and rather devoted to a theatricalised and caricatured illustration of the Wal ritual that visually reinvents and immortalizes the dance spectacle created by the women The na ve mise en scene images of the various series that form part of the book Songs of the Wal s by Patrick Willocq reveals the rising of a new ethnographic subjectivity that operates from the realm of artistic production after Conrad s Heart of Darkness and Malinowsky s diary In line with a new generation of photographers working on the African continent Patrick addresses the juxtaposition between the traditional and the contemporary through staged photography while he marks a new take of the ethnographic turn in contemporary art in which cultural hybridisation results from a well curated aestheticisation of the post ethnographic individual In this way the paradigm of the ethnographer artist as the author and creator of cultures gains a new affirmative status within the realm of contemporary art and the creative industries in which the new narrator artist is less invested by the concern about authenticity or 21
Azu Nwagbogu THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT RITUALS AND SURREALISM Mondher Kilani argues that the anthropologist on the ground knows that for his ethnographic journey to be successful the natives must disturb and fascinate him simultaneously This is why he beats them to the draw and equips himself with an ethnographic pen and the will to invent the possible Kilani s L invention de l autre 1995 like other texts of postmodern anthropologic literature unveils the strategies of construction of alterity that dominate the ethnographic discipline of which the aesthetics of the difference and the exoticising gaze are fundamental ingredients As our social history teaches the colonial enterprise lies in this primogenial idea of the impenetrability of the other displayed by the ethnographic approach which prepares the terrain for first its helping hand then dependence then subjugation conquest domestication and consumption Like the early ethnographers Willocq is fascinated and enchanted by the way of life of the Ekonda Bantus and Pygmies of the Democratic Republic of Congo For their part the Ekonda were initially less interested by another curious white man concerned with making pictures of life in the Congo jungles I first met Patrick when he was at the early stages of his fascination at that time it was the landscape and unspoiled nature of the Congo that intrigued him He made the most brilliant aesthetic juxtapositions in his debut photo essay aptly titled Bikoro Huts which was largely a tribute to the beauty of the unspoiled habitat of the Ekonda of the DR Congo For Willocq the road was a journey of self discovery The landscape and intricately sculpted design objects were his primary interest and focus the people were secondary considerations Unlike South Africa apartheid era photographs and paintings that represented an absent terrain devoid of people as though to suggest that colonialists where discoverers of a new territory Willocq s reluctance to photograph the locals was delayed until he in his words earned the right and their trust When he did photograph them there was an effort to shift the gaze away from the difference and toward common shared values between the communities The focus was clearly away from the classical ethnographic gaze about how different they were from the established cultural and physical normativity but more about how similar and ordinary it was to observe them The colours and sensibility betrayed a man laden with a tangible wistfulness I soon learned from Patrick that he moved to the DR Congo in his words at the age of six when your 20 Azu Nwagbogu mind starts opening to the world and he left aged twelve only to return twenty seven years later to reinvent himself as an artist disillusioned with his previous life as a corporate mogul Patrick stresses that the essence of his being was fundamentally shaped during those six years in the DR Congo and that he felt the urge to reconnect with his early youth in his state of disenfranchisement However as his interest and understanding grew so too did his confidence and friendship with the Pygmies of the DR Congo He starts learning about their very secretive rituals and spends up to three months at a stretch in the Congo jungles It is endearing to witness the seriousness of his gullible honesty of belief in the veracity of tales that the locals share about their mythologies He settles himself in the darkness of the African jungle and turns his exoticising gaze toward the female ritual of the Wal breastfeeding mothers mostly practiced amongst Pygmies in the Ekonda territory of the northern region of the DRC He interrogates himself on the distance between himself and the object of his artistic research and ethnographic inquietude But unlike contemporary postmodern anthropologists Patrick s confidence in his artistic means and friendship reshapes the community It keeps him from fearing the problematics that rise from his authorial position as an artist and ethnographer or from the regimes of fiction at play in the images he is about to create He is flattered by the title le fr re des Wal s the brother of the Wal s conferred upon him Like the participant observer he finds his native informants and collaborators who help him to set up a scenography in which native female actors parody themselves and their rituality in front of his camera As the artist says toute cette nergie est orient e vers un seul but la photo all this energy is focused toward the same objective the photograph The collective effort results in a playful colourful mise en scene devoid of any descriptive claim and rather devoted to a theatricalised and caricatured illustration of the Wal ritual that visually reinvents and immortalizes the dance spectacle created by the women The na ve mise en scene images of the various series that form part of the book Songs of the Wal s by Patrick Willocq reveals the rising of a new ethnographic subjectivity that operates from the realm of artistic production after Conrad s Heart of Darkness and Malinowsky s diary In line with a new generation of photographers working on the African continent Patrick addresses the juxtaposition between the traditional and the contemporary through staged photography while he marks a new take of the ethnographic turn in contemporary art in which cultural hybridisation results from a well curated aestheticisation of the post ethnographic individual In this way the paradigm of the ethnographer artist as the author and creator of cultures gains a new affirmative status within the realm of contemporary art and the creative industries in which the new narrator artist is less invested by the concern about authenticity or 21
Azu Nwagbogu veracity of his representations and is more focused on his own invention of the possible But can it really be that simple Is there a moral dilemma Is he an artist or a saviour We are used to seeing many photo books about others dramatized in the usual fashion black and white to confer authenticity and veracity and photographed close up to make the subjects appear like objects These safe familiar photobooks are popular and make use of the accepted visual language to represent remote peoples living in precarious situations I have coined the term Salgado effect to describe images of colonies whose subjects are resoundingly muted The great expectoration of our own prejudices is given free reign and projected upon them through the romantic rhetoric of loss the message sotto voce is that these are diseased soon to be extinct communities when in truth the reverse is the case Azu Nwagbogu pride and respect in seeing their rituals re enacted and documented in a colourful and animated fashion The chief of the community Bosembo explains This is what we have never seen of ourselves before now and it makes us all proud to recreate and perform our rituals 1 James Clifford On Ethnographic Surrealism in Comparative Studies in Society and History vol 23 no 4 October 1981 pp 539 64 here p 540 Willocq offers us the very opposite But what do we call it and how do we read the semiotics of his brilliance Indeed speaking with Patrick you get the impression that he is not fully aware of his own genius James Clifford coined the phrase ethnographic surrealism and he defined his expanded idea of surrealism to circumscribe an esthetic that values fragments curious collections unexpected juxtapositions that works to provoke the manifestation of extraordinary realities drawn from the domains of the erotic the exotic and the unconscious 1 It seems fitting as an apt description of the work of Willocq There is a necessary reading of the semiotics of his arrangements within his mise en scene There is an intuitive aspect of his staged image making Indeed there are still many communities and not just in Africa where the transition from traditional modes of communication based on oral story telling and shared experiences remain unstained by the recorded and documented approach associated with the Hawthorne observer interference of new and old technology by instruments like the camera Photography like ethnography is always about others and this fascination with others their modes of living cultures rituals histories and futures as narrated by another can be problematic It is often contaminated by the exoticisation and eroticisation of the observed It is an inescapable fact In this work Songs of the Wal s it seems like a procession a religious journey It is also a performative artistic gesture in which the Wal s and their collaborators are willing participants It is a truism that photography changes the way we see but it also changes the way people see themselves Since Willocq s new explorations with the Congo Wal s nothing much has changed in the community except a feeling of 22 Azu Nwagbogu Founder and director of the African Artists Foundation a non profit organisation based in Lagos Nigeria and dedicated to the promotion and development of contemporary African arts and artists He is also founder and director of the LagosPhoto 23 Festival an annual international photographic arts festival which brings leading local and international photographers into dialogue with multifaceted stories of Africa Nwagbogu has served as a juror for various international photography events
Azu Nwagbogu veracity of his representations and is more focused on his own invention of the possible But can it really be that simple Is there a moral dilemma Is he an artist or a saviour We are used to seeing many photo books about others dramatized in the usual fashion black and white to confer authenticity and veracity and photographed close up to make the subjects appear like objects These safe familiar photobooks are popular and make use of the accepted visual language to represent remote peoples living in precarious situations I have coined the term Salgado effect to describe images of colonies whose subjects are resoundingly muted The great expectoration of our own prejudices is given free reign and projected upon them through the romantic rhetoric of loss the message sotto voce is that these are diseased soon to be extinct communities when in truth the reverse is the case Azu Nwagbogu pride and respect in seeing their rituals re enacted and documented in a colourful and animated fashion The chief of the community Bosembo explains This is what we have never seen of ourselves before now and it makes us all proud to recreate and perform our rituals 1 James Clifford On Ethnographic Surrealism in Comparative Studies in Society and History vol 23 no 4 October 1981 pp 539 64 here p 540 Willocq offers us the very opposite But what do we call it and how do we read the semiotics of his brilliance Indeed speaking with Patrick you get the impression that he is not fully aware of his own genius James Clifford coined the phrase ethnographic surrealism and he defined his expanded idea of surrealism to circumscribe an esthetic that values fragments curious collections unexpected juxtapositions that works to provoke the manifestation of extraordinary realities drawn from the domains of the erotic the exotic and the unconscious 1 It seems fitting as an apt description of the work of Willocq There is a necessary reading of the semiotics of his arrangements within his mise en scene There is an intuitive aspect of his staged image making Indeed there are still many communities and not just in Africa where the transition from traditional modes of communication based on oral story telling and shared experiences remain unstained by the recorded and documented approach associated with the Hawthorne observer interference of new and old technology by instruments like the camera Photography like ethnography is always about others and this fascination with others their modes of living cultures rituals histories and futures as narrated by another can be problematic It is often contaminated by the exoticisation and eroticisation of the observed It is an inescapable fact In this work Songs of the Wal s it seems like a procession a religious journey It is also a performative artistic gesture in which the Wal s and their collaborators are willing participants It is a truism that photography changes the way we see but it also changes the way people see themselves Since Willocq s new explorations with the Congo Wal s nothing much has changed in the community except a feeling of 22 Azu Nwagbogu Founder and director of the African Artists Foundation a non profit organisation based in Lagos Nigeria and dedicated to the promotion and development of contemporary African arts and artists He is also founder and director of the LagosPhoto 23 Festival an annual international photographic arts festival which brings leading local and international photographers into dialogue with multifaceted stories of Africa Nwagbogu has served as a juror for various international photography events
Asongwaka Educated Wal Epanza Makita Bat Wal The Ark of Wal Oyomb Wal Lokito and Her Belongings Wal Bontongu Hung by Weavers Wal Oyomb Bored and Alone Watch Out Lokito Hunter Wal The Husband of Wal Besala Returns Empty Handed Bosala Leopard Wal Wal Lokito Unfair Sharing Wal Mpia and Her Mundele Wal Asongwaka Sentenced to Jail Wal Asongwaka Takes Off Wal Oyomb Nk mu Wal Besawu s Bed Ntembe Sparrow Hawk Wal The Uncle of Wal Ikita Flees Home Wal Bontongu s Pond Wal Bakuku Chimpanzee at Sunset Wal Lokito as Pretty as a Caterpillar Wal Bakuku Generous like Palm Nuts Wal Bontongu a Darling Stone Wal Bakuku Hops across the Creek Wal Bakuku Ants Dish Wal Ikita Confident and Shameless Wal Lokito Queen Mother Wal Oyomb and Mpia Basket Weaving The Wal on the Swing Wal Oyomb and Polygamy The Owls Eyelids of the Wal s Bontongu One of the Last Bantu Wal The Closed Circle of the Wal s Beyond the Circle of the Wal s Wal Asongwaka Finally Free To listen to the Wal s songs in their original Lokonda dialect please scan the QR codes found in this book with your mobile device
Asongwaka Educated Wal Epanza Makita Bat Wal The Ark of Wal Oyomb Wal Lokito and Her Belongings Wal Bontongu Hung by Weavers Wal Oyomb Bored and Alone Watch Out Lokito Hunter Wal The Husband of Wal Besala Returns Empty Handed Bosala Leopard Wal Wal Lokito Unfair Sharing Wal Mpia and Her Mundele Wal Asongwaka Sentenced to Jail Wal Asongwaka Takes Off Wal Oyomb Nk mu Wal Besawu s Bed Ntembe Sparrow Hawk Wal The Uncle of Wal Ikita Flees Home Wal Bontongu s Pond Wal Bakuku Chimpanzee at Sunset Wal Lokito as Pretty as a Caterpillar Wal Bakuku Generous like Palm Nuts Wal Bontongu a Darling Stone Wal Bakuku Hops across the Creek Wal Bakuku Ants Dish Wal Ikita Confident and Shameless Wal Lokito Queen Mother Wal Oyomb and Mpia Basket Weaving The Wal on the Swing Wal Oyomb and Polygamy The Owls Eyelids of the Wal s Bontongu One of the Last Bantu Wal The Closed Circle of the Wal s Beyond the Circle of the Wal s Wal Asongwaka Finally Free To listen to the Wal s songs in their original Lokonda dialect please scan the QR codes found in this book with your mobile device
5 expeditions 235 days ASONGWAKA EDUCATED WAL Wal Nj m l nsem l Nk k sa nsok sa Wal njok nd la k ti y nd l l nk nji Wal b k l hi njok nd la b ku nd k ta Wal stand I stand Be seated I sit I walk with the chair of white people and chiefs I Wal who went to school I walk with a book in my hand Disciplined as a schoolgirl Wal Asongwaka twenty one years old three years in seclusion mother of Bola her husband has disappeared has conceded to go into seclusion against her will accepting her father s decision She also sings that she went to school and can therefore read and write which is quite rare since young Pygmy girls generally do not have access to education She manifests here her superiority over her rivals she is carried on a tipoy chair in the way that indigenous leaders and colonial agents also used to be carried The Wal ritual is highly competitive since it is all about having more prestige and power than your rivals to boost family honour Asongwaka the beautiful From the village of Bioko Ilongo clan 28 29
5 expeditions 235 days ASONGWAKA EDUCATED WAL Wal Nj m l nsem l Nk k sa nsok sa Wal njok nd la k ti y nd l l nk nji Wal b k l hi njok nd la b ku nd k ta Wal stand I stand Be seated I sit I walk with the chair of white people and chiefs I Wal who went to school I walk with a book in my hand Disciplined as a schoolgirl Wal Asongwaka twenty one years old three years in seclusion mother of Bola her husband has disappeared has conceded to go into seclusion against her will accepting her father s decision She also sings that she went to school and can therefore read and write which is quite rare since young Pygmy girls generally do not have access to education She manifests here her superiority over her rivals she is carried on a tipoy chair in the way that indigenous leaders and colonial agents also used to be carried The Wal ritual is highly competitive since it is all about having more prestige and power than your rivals to boost family honour Asongwaka the beautiful From the village of Bioko Ilongo clan 28 29
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13 000 km 2 300 litres of diesel EPANZA MAKITA BAT WAL Bok ng nyama bok ng mp l ns name ng s n m b nk mo w ngolo Part mammal part bird I hang upside down like a large bat For Pygmies a bat is a very unique creature half mammal half bird By comparing herself to a bat Wal Epanza Makita nineteen years old married one year in seclusion mother of Lotitia talks about her superiority Her rivals here Wal Lokito will not be able to copy her because she is unique Epanza Makita the troublemaker From the village of Bioko Ilongo clan 32 33
13 000 km 2 300 litres of diesel EPANZA MAKITA BAT WAL Bok ng nyama bok ng mp l ns name ng s n m b nk mo w ngolo Part mammal part bird I hang upside down like a large bat For Pygmies a bat is a very unique creature half mammal half bird By comparing herself to a bat Wal Epanza Makita nineteen years old married one year in seclusion mother of Lotitia talks about her superiority Her rivals here Wal Lokito will not be able to copy her because she is unique Epanza Makita the troublemaker From the village of Bioko Ilongo clan 32 33
28 punctures 8 broken ball bearings 34 35
28 punctures 8 broken ball bearings 34 35
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24 clans 33 Wal s THE ARK OF WAL OYOMB Bap p lolende njoy l s y ok li nko l b s m m b to in is m yot nd otumb yond mb l b mba ma sotua nd ot mb yond mb la bankondo Papas see us as my boat comes to land with my assistants and my feathers in the wind One assistant enters the hut to prepare food my mother enters the hut to prepare palm nuts A Wal spends most of her seclusion in her mother s hut There she is under very special care Her mother initiates her into her new social role while her assistants take care of her Wale Oyomb twentytwo years old married five years in seclusion mother of Angela compares her seclusion to life on board a boat locked up and accompanied by her entourage With the feathers of her hat in the wind Oyomb s boat nears the end of its journey announcing the end of her seclusion Oyomb the singer From the village of Manga Ikole clan 38 39
24 clans 33 Wal s THE ARK OF WAL OYOMB Bap p lolende njoy l s y ok li nko l b s m m b to in is m yot nd otumb yond mb l b mba ma sotua nd ot mb yond mb la bankondo Papas see us as my boat comes to land with my assistants and my feathers in the wind One assistant enters the hut to prepare food my mother enters the hut to prepare palm nuts A Wal spends most of her seclusion in her mother s hut There she is under very special care Her mother initiates her into her new social role while her assistants take care of her Wale Oyomb twentytwo years old married five years in seclusion mother of Angela compares her seclusion to life on board a boat locked up and accompanied by her entourage With the feathers of her hat in the wind Oyomb s boat nears the end of its journey announcing the end of her seclusion Oyomb the singer From the village of Manga Ikole clan 38 39
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