Artist in Residence
September - December 2023
Stone Karim Mohamad is a poet, photographer, and also a well-known spoken-word artist in Cameroon and Germany. He splits his time between Yaoundé, Buea and Stuttgart.
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More InformationMy work is non-academic. It is based on a human understanding and my experience of democracy as a Cameroonian and an African artist. I’m putting questions on the table, and I want to create awareness of problems going on. The art piece which I created at MIASA is the beginning of a work reflecting on the concept of “demo-crazy”. The concept was first introduced by the Nigerian musician and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti, exploring the aspect of “craziness” in demo-crazy.[i] I realised that we share the same vision. The way democracy was imported on the African continent doesn’t work for African societies. Democracy is supposed to be the “government for the people by the people”, but people only vote. In Cameroon, every few years, elections build a new class of bourgeoisie. We need practices which are more rooted, based on our own original structures. It’s may be utopic, but dreaming is free of charge. In most African countries, the large majority of people is addressed in a language they don’t understand. Those in power are the perpetrators, but as they define the rules, the victims are already placed guilty. Demo-crazy is the “demonstration of craziness”.
[i] Fela Kuti on Democracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrdkdHKhQBk. Fela Kuti also reflects on this topic in his song „Democracy“: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAvRIaj2NkE. Later, his son Femi Kuti released a song on „Demo-crazy“: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Fb0XtATFc.
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