Here are all my Zambian projects — except for the Zombie in Zambia tetralogy — often created in collaboration with Zambian ethnographer Afulodidim Nikefolosi.
Dr Afulodidim Nikefolosi is a figure in answer to the challenge: show me a contemporary mixture of Amos Tutuola and Zora Neale Hurston.
She was born in the 1990s in a remote and flourishing matriarcal subsaharan village.
Against all advice, except that of her Chieftainess who had noticed her exceptional and spirited intelligence, she pursued her quest for alternative knowledge at a formal school, some one thousand kilometres away. This at a time she had already become familiar with the bleeding moon. She learnt to read and write in a few weeks and completed primary and secondary school within three years.
Believing that field experience is the inevitable complement to academic knowledge, she wandered through three continents and a number of jobs ranging from sales to care. Rejecting the idea of single authorship, she wrote articles, fiction and poetry under a number of pen names.
Her years-long observations of The Noisebringers formed the basis of her seminal trioethnograhic piece, for which she received a university scholarship from The Council Culture of the Associated Chieftainesses of baLafuni. That made her the youngest PhD student in the UK, where she now conducts pioneering research in the field.
Since 2020 - Tente (films)
2022 - Traditional (collection of stories)
2023 - Our stories (children stories)
Since 2024 - baLafuni myths
2024 - It could be better
2024 - Solving diversity
Tente is a great Zambian sorceress who is the subject of a series of films co-written, co-directed and supervised by Afulodidim Nikefolosi. The films are directed by the Noisebringers (episodes 1 to 3), with Jonathan O'Hear (episode 3) and Brice Catherin (episode 4). They are written by all these people.
Traditionnel is a collection of stories about the adventures of Brice Catherin and Afulodidim Nikefolosi in Zambia, in search of the great sorceress Tente. The French version is available on request. Here is the English version.
Our Stories is a collection of four stories written and illustrated by primary school children in Zambia, during ‘flash’ writing workshops (90 to 120 minutes maximum) led by Mukuka Kasonde and Brice Catherin.
Since February 2024 and its issue 28, the French art magazine Mon Lapin Quotidien has been publishing (in French) baLafuni myths (the Lafunis are Tente's tribespeople) collected and translated by Afulodidim Nikefolosi and Brice Catherin.
It could be better is a transdisciplinary project by the Association de Malfaiteurs and the Noisebringers, with Afulodidim Nikefolosi and their guests, that took place at Analix Forever (Switzerland) from the 8 January to the 21 February 2024. It involved:
Jonathan O’Hear (installations, performances, co-creation)
Brice Catherin (installations, performances, co-creation)
Maria Sappho (installations, performances, co-creation)
Henry McPherson (installations, performances, co-creation)
Afulodidim Nikefolosi (installations, performances, co-creation)
Guests: Anonymous sex workers (CH), Victor Sebastiao da Silva (CH), Chimbwaka Ellah Simwanza (Zambia), Kaluba Champo (Zambia), Nikias Imhoof (CH).
It could be better makes rare or unheard voices audible by initiating and presenting artistic collaborations with marginalised or silenced people who do not usually enjoy the privilege of accessing stages, galleries and publications. These people, some of them artists, come from very different cultures, social classes, generations and professional practices. Two of the commonalities that bind them are:
1) their willingness to share art and/or stories that rarely find a place in the Global North cultural landscape;
2) a common desire to collaborate to imagine, together, new forms to share this art and these stories.
The quick video tour (guided by Mwendajangula) is visible above.
The full tour of the exhibitions is available below:
Solving diversity is a proposal by Afulodidim Nikefolosi and Brice Catherin to resolve diversity. Originally created at Analix Forever in December 2022, the performance has been rewritten and expanded for the Go go go festival at the Théâtre du Grütli in January 2024.
