Doual'Art

Doual art Bentskins zipping through the city: motorbikers function as taxis, taking passengers to their destinations

Doual’art, Salon Urbain de Douala (SUD)
Triennial 1991 ongoing, Douala, Cameroon

Doual'art is a contemporary art and research centre created in 1991 by Marilyn Douala Bell and Didier Schaub in Douala, Cameroon. doual'art has been working in the city for the past 16 years, and establishing its practice as site-specific projects and site specific art interventions.
For the Saloin Urbain de Douala (SUD), doual'art in collaboration with iStrike Foundation (their international office), invited cultural practitioners, researchers and the wider public to enter the artistic scene of Douala through a series of events that animated city from the 9th to the 16th December 2007.

Participants were invited to the presentation of site-specific projects throughout 12 neighbourhoods of Douala, some produced ad-hoc for SUD, some resulting from many years of work, and all tackling issues such as urban mobility, heritage, informal sector, recycling and modernity. A theoretical discussion developed through two conferences, one focusing on the much contested La Nouvelle Liberté, the other on the methodologies and impact of urban interventions.

Emma Marcello, LANS Project Co-ordinator, attended the SUD to participate in the activities and explore the idea of common space and the connotations and meanings it may have for artists and cultural practitioners working, living, or visiting Douala.

Participants approached the cityscape visiting the most experimental public art projects promoted by doual'art in the last 16 years and the most active art institutions throughout 12 neighbourhoods of Douala. The SUD was both a celebration of the city and a way of addressing urban mobility and the contemporary urbanisation process and the city's stories and narratives.