Werewere Liking's holistic eco-esthétique

Abstract

What is "development?" and who is "developed?" asks Cameroonian-born, Ivorian resident, artist, writer, performer and activist Werewere Liking, one of the African continent's most cosmopolitan, innovative and socially engaged artists today. Through her art and activism, Liking urges us to confront these assumptions today in order to gain a clearer perspective on what and who contemporary discourse paints as the "developed." In this essay, we will follow the eco-ethical and environmental threads in Liking's work beginning with two of her early plays, La Puissance de Um (1979) and Une Nouvelle Terre: Rituel d'investiture d'un nouveau village (1980), which can be considered "Environmental Theater," extending into her 2016 marionette play Ton Pied, Mon Pied, and taking into account some of her contemporary discourse. We will also consider scientific research that analyzes the impacts of the Lagdo Dam in Cameroon and the Manantali Dam in Mali, which have greatly impacted local people and their practices. This scientific data is foregrounded so that it will help us better understand the socio-economic and socio-cultural effects of these phenomena and the implications of "development" in the Pan-African world, on which Liking regularly comments in her creative works and interviews. By provoking us to shift our perspective and our living strategies through dynamic, artful practices, Liking calls us to "recreate through consciousness" where we turn our attention to "the freedom to…": the power within ourselves and from our acts, and those from within our communities. She encourages us to see with a holistic perspective, to be creative, and to be conscious so that we can learn to live finally and beget a new earth.