Marthe Bolda

Marthe Bolda was born in Cameroon. She lives and works between Africa, Europe and the United States. She begun her career as a dancer and choreographer. Very soon her work took another direction, she starts making a kind of "performance" as she needs to express a reflection, a condition.

Some of her performances can be related to a psychological deviation, like absolute survival to overcome her fears. This is a turning point in her work, which leads to a changing of medium: visual arts, photography, video, installations.

Through her work, we distinguish an eternal quest of identity. This is most obvious in her series "checkpoint" produced in Bamako, Lille, Seattle and Hanoi. We see her walking around in the city carrying many bags, we understand then that this is about her place in the world; the fatigue, the absence are close to madness. It is about moving, being nowhere and trying to escape the ghosts of colonization that have changed the history of Africa.

Today Marthe Bolda's work takes another form related to economic issues as new actors got in the game including China while nothing change, history continues and perpetuates. The "Addiction" series shows with humour Marthe Bolda's obsession about the addiction to a continent, Africa. This is an installation of five videos where, in closeup we see a woman dancing in shorts printed in effigy of some French and African presidents face to face throughout History. Her work is committed, and her artworks form a global reflection on the "modus vivendi" of our system.