Artist in Residency 2022
WitH Grace Dorothée Tong
August–October 2022
We are honored to welcome Grace Dorothée Tong in Berlin for a 3 months residency conceived in the framework of the project UNRAVELING THE (UNDER )DEVELOPMENT COMPLEX OR TOWARDS A POST- (UNDER-)DEVELOPMENT INTERDEPENDENCE. The residency follows the first project chapter in Cameroon with the joint event at Bandjoun Station: DE TING WEH E DO CACAO NA E GO DO CAFÉ. ON SOWING AND REAPING, OF HOLISTIC OVERSTANDINGS OF CULTURES.
Grace Dorothée Tong is a visual artist who works and lives in Doula, Cameroon. She graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts Nkongsamba, the University of Douala. She participated in group shows and exhibitions which took place in the National Museum of Cameroon (2019), World Bank (2018), MAM Gallery Douala (2017), the Cultural Centre of Etterbeek (2020), Doual'Art Centre (2017), French Institute of Cameroon (2015-2016), Bandjoun Station (2019-2021). Grace Dorothée Tong's artistic practice is concerned primarily with human relations which finds its expression both in the themes and topics depicted by her artworks but also in her involvment in working with local communities across the Cameroon with special attention to bringing awarness of decolonial history of Cameroon to the youth.
Today, Grace has taken on new missions in her community as a town-crier and also as an artist citizen or “artizen” who not only engages in creative activity but also participates in building the civil society of which she is an integral part. The artist strives to promote indigenous and local development through her artistic and activist practice.
The artistic residency is supported by Goethe Institut Kamerun. It is conceived during the Bandjoun Chapter of the project UNRAVELING THE (UNDER-)DEVELOPMENT COMPLEX OR TOWARDS A POST- (UNDER-)DEVELOPMENT INTERDEPENDENCE, funded by the TURN2 Fund of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media), and supported by SAVVY friends.