Get on board for Molue Mobile Museum of Contemporary Art, a bus which has travelled from Lagos to Dakar to arrive in time for the Biennale of contemporary African art in Dakar.
We talked to Emeka Udemba, the artist behind the bus, about what it’s all about.
What is MMMoCA, why are you doing it and who are you?
MMMoCA is the abbreviation for (Molue Mobile Museum of Contemporary Art, Lagos). Remodeled from an old Lagos commuter bus popularly known as Molue, MMMoCA is a museum as a nomadic experience.
As an artist very engaged within and outside my community, this project provides me and other collaborators a platform to question the relevance of ‘the museum’ as a static, collection-centered cultural institution primarily situated in privileged areas of our communities. It interrogates to which extent museums of contemporary art are capable of being contemporary, which is by engaging with the real world.
The road trip to the 2016 Dakar biennale will take us to Benin, Togo, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali and Dakar, Senegal.
This is crucial within the African context where issues of socio-economic challenges, identity, post-colonialism and political transformations are at the front burner.
What was the plan for the trip?
The road trip to the 2016 Dakar biennale (24 April -12 May) will take us to Benin, Togo, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali and Dakar, Senegal. During this trip, the participants (Aderemi Adegbite, Clara Aden, Monsuru Alashe, Yamferlinos, Ayo Akinwande, Agozino Emmanuel Agozino) will engage and interact with local communities where we make stops, through their works. This could be performances, walks, photography, drawing, screenings etc.
We have a professional driver and a mechanic who can hopefully fix the bus should we have a breakdown.
What will you do in Dakar?
I intend to examine through interactions, photography and performances the contact between contemporary art and social reality.
What are your favourite games to play on a road trip?
I play a bit of chess. I hope some of my co-travelers play too. That would be fun.
Contemporary art is…
Contemporary art is ‘Now and what could be’.
