A great journey through Cameroon art… This is what the Musée du Quai Branly offers from April 5 to July 17, 2022, with the latest exhibition, “On the Road of Chiefdoms of Cameroon. The Visible and the Invisible”. It invites people to discover the culture of communities and the preservation of a “unique, historical and living heritage”, from the high plateaus of Grassfields, west of the country, and “carefully preserved for centuries by traditional chiefs”.

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Genuine almost divine characters, these chiefs are the main keepers of this art, responsible for “both tradition and the connection between the world of the ancestors and that of the living”. The exhibition enables to save and highlight this heritage with about 300 works, including 260 treasures kept by several chiefs and family lineages. National treasures displayed alongside contemporary works of art made by Cameroonian artists to create the connection between tradition and present.

And exhibition also shining a light on “the cultural influence of chiefdoms on contemporary art and the living dimension of this heritage”, at the heart of the Bamileke society. As for the tour, it is divided into three parts: the first one focusing on the typical organization of a Bamileke chiefdom, the second shines a light on “the relationship between art and power through the presentation of the role of the chief, social, economic and political pilar of the kingdom, the role of women and of the many secret societies acting like a counter-power”, and the last part is about these very secret societies and their role as counter-power within the community.

A genuine valorization of the Cameroonian cultural heritage co-curated with the Route des Chefferies association. Shall we go to the musée du Quai Branly, then, friends?