Community Arts: N’DJamena / Chad 2022
CONCOURS TOUBOU
Location: Al Mouna Cultural Centre, N’Djamena, Chad
When: Jan - Feb 2022
Background: This is the first community Wall Project in #Ndjamena - #Chad. 103 people joined us painting and turned their voices into a collective piece of art. Since 2020 the Concours Tubu takes place annually at the Al Mouna Cultural Centre. It is a writing competition in which participants from three different language groups to learn to write and read in their own language. We were asked by ADP, a Chadian linguistic organisation to create a mural with the participants, who speak Teda, Daza, and Kanembou on the theme of integration, language, and #culture.
“No matter how small, how invisible we feel, our opinions matter. When we stop talking, the world loses a voice that only we can give.”
BUT HOW DO YOU PUT ALL THESE NEEDS ON ONE WALL?
Chad is one country with over 120 languages and dialects, about 200 ethnic groups, and a very clear division between the individual groups, especially between the north and the south. One can already recognize very clearly by their clothing to which religious group someone belongs. Muslims live mostly in the north, Christians and Animists live in the south of the country.
We chose one of the smallest birds, the butterfly finch, which can be spotted on the trees in the middle of the city. The bird on the front wall here migrates between north and south, enchanting you with its strong colors. It is a symbol carrying the message, the culture we express. If we can write and read in our language, we can fly and shape the world.
Here they say that if you can end a speech with a proverb, then it is relevant. We can now actually underline our image with a proverb of the Tubus: “Čôhuri ka hunã yûhudu, gûi hûyi” - The bird has abandoned his own song and his throat has swollen up. (do not give up your traditions and try to imitate those of others)
A PICTURE BOOK ON THE WALL - by Rahel Lam
I watched the children on the wall, how they painted the pictures with their little fingers, proudly showing their friends what they had painted themselves or simply what they had observed. I suddenly realized something. The wall is not only for the participants of the Concours, the adults from the neighborhood, nor for those children who participated:
This wall is a picture book for all who pass by, for the children who have no books, whose home is the streets a wall like a teeming book, which they can tell and reinvent.
I have always thought that we paint for those who participate, who are strengthened by being a part of it. In N’djamena, I realized that we also paint for those who own the street, those who pass by the pictures. They are not just beautiful pictures, they are stories that can be retold.
ANTICIPATION:
103 adults + kids
from the community are Involved in the wall painting