"I talk about encounters... about disturbing identities, about people's architectural and historical heritage; I go to meet myself."
Wilfried Mbida Far from a fight against systems, far from a desire to deconstruct and redefine society, art can also strive to deepen our understanding and to extend our memory in time and space. It is in that logic of thought and creation that Wilfried Mbida has been working for two years making living spaces the object of her artistic experiments. She invites us to discover them through her body of work entitled Kédé Ndap. Kédé Ndap is a multimedia exhibition that combines painting, installation, text, and sound. It was created by Wilfried Mbida, an artist with interests in issues of identity, culture, and heritage. Starting from the concept of the house, where she deals with absence, she then directs her research towards interiors to evoke silence and calm. This explains the title Kédéndap, which means "inside the house" in the Bassa language of Cameroon. Wilfried interiors are inhabited by characters that are sometimes staged or discreetly photographed in their gestures. She immortalizes these moments of humanity in interior settings that she repaints. For her, these spaces are privileged places that bear witness to the life of human beings, passing through their moments of fear and pain, but also of joy and celebration. She challenges the identity and history of the people she meets, very often family members, long-time acquaintances or friends, and does not hesitate to go towards them and "enter their intimacies". Inspired by the artist Edward Hopper and the writer Fatou Diome (Khetale), Wilfried's work underpins the fact that objects (rooms, furniture, utensils, etc.) and spaces (living rooms, kitchens, corridors, etc.) that we tend to trivialize give off energy and can be valuable to those who live with them. According to the artist, they are the most reliable witnesses of our history and can help us narrate it. In this exhibition, Wilfried not only shows her acrylic and pastel paintings on canvas or paper but also leads spectators towards something more experimental by inviting them to discover her universe. In addition to her collection of collages of photographs she collects from her family and acquaintances, she adds traces of phosphorus which reveal another dimension when reading her works in the dark. Alongside the earthy colors and greys that characterize the artist's inner-sensitive side at the time of creation, we also see that she places herself as a permanent explorer of details through perspective planes and diverse motifs.
Kédé Ndap stands out for subjecting the gaze to a real introspection: it is also about our interior. Everyone can construct their own narrative from each work, which offers varied and subjective narratives. The exhibition begins in the hall and finishes in the media library with a visual and sound installation. It is an invitation to become aware of all that surrounds us and of our own stories through those we are being told.
