Cameroon / 2005 / 3mins / Installation, Video Art / English

A man alights on the moon. Neil Armstrong is there. In a steady stream of dance steps, to the sound of Cameroonian music, the man - the artist himself - moves toward the American astronaut. Slowly, Leye merges with Armstrong, becoming one with his body in a brief burst of Afrofuturist invasion. This short film is part of a larger five-channel video installation. Using a paired down aesthetic, it examines with humor and irony the history of colonial and neocolonial expansion and the imagery of empire. The film and the larger installation also question how television news footage spreads hegemonic narratives and shapes the collective unconscious of political subjects.

Goddy Leye

Born in 1965 in Cameroon, Goddy Leye lived and worked in Douala, district of Bonendal, where in 2003 he founded the development center for contemporary experimental creation, ArtBakery. Goddy was also a founding member of the Prim’Art and Dreamers collectives. From 1987 to 1992, after obtaining his Master of Arts at the University of Yaounde, he undertook private artistic training from artist and art historian Pascal Kenfack. He became an independent artist in 1992. Strongly influenced by history and memory, his work was based primarily on stories, myths and mythologies. Similarly, because they contain ideas, emotions and sensibilities, signs and symbols occupied an important place for Leye. He envisioned memory as a base on which you can express subjectivity. In this sense, he never saw it as a unique and absolute truth, since in his view “…History in its entirety is written from a particular viewpoint, which cannot be universal”. Goddy Leye passed away in February 2011, aged 46, at the District Hospital in Douala Bonassama, following a short illness. Learn More