Borne Fontaine

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Borne Fontaine
Borne Fountaine Bessengue Douala 11.JPG
Artist Danièle Diwouta-Kotto
Year 2003
Medium Building
Dimensions 6 m× 3 m× 4 m(240 in× 120 in× 160 in)
Location Vallée Bessengue, Bessengue Akwa Douala, Cameroon
Coordinates 4°03′17″N9°42′26″E / 4.054601°N 9.707102°E / 4.054601; 9.707102 Coordinates: 4°03′17″N9°42′26″E / 4.054601°N 9.707102°E / 4.054601; 9.707102
Owner Municipality of Douala

Borne Fontaine (or Kiosque à eau) is a permanent fountain, from artist Danièle Diwouta-Kotto, inaugurated in 2003. It is located in Douala (Cameroon).

Fountain piece of architecture which ejects water

A fountain is a piece of architecture which pours water into a basin or jets it into the air to supply drinking water and/or for a decorative or dramatic effect.

Danièle Diwouta-Kotto Cameroonian designer and architect

Danièle Diwouta-Kotto, born in 1960, is a Cameroonian designer and architect, member of the Cameroon architects association (ONAC) and founder of the V.A.A. Villes et Architectures d'Afrique organization.

Douala Place in Littoral, Cameroon

Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and its economic capital. It is also the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Region. Home to Central Africa's largest port and its major international airport, Douala International Airport (DLA), it is the commercial and economic capital of Cameroon and the entire CEMAC region comprising Gabon, Congo, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic and Cameroon. Consequently, it handles most of the country's major exports, such as oil, cocoa and coffee, timber, metals and fruits. As from 2018, the city and its surrounding area had an estimated population of 1,338,082. The city sits on the estuary of Wouri River and its climate is tropical.

Contents

The artwork

Borne Fontaine is a public artwork in Douala (Cameroon. Its creation was commissioned by Doual'art, produced by Danièle Diwouta-Kotto, then offered to the Douala Municipality. It was inaugurated in 2003 during the SUD - Salon Urbain de Douala 2007. It is an artwork of 3 by 4 meters, with a height of 6 meters.

Public art is art in any media that has been planned and executed with the intention of being staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. Public art is significant within the art world, amongst curators, commissioning bodies and practitioners of public art, to whom it signifies a working practice of site specificity, community involvement and collaboration. Public art may include any art which is exhibited in a public space including publicly accessible buildings, but often it is not that simple. Rather, the relationship between the content and audience, what the art is saying and to whom, is just as important if not more important than its physical location.

Cameroon Republic in West Africa

Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Although Cameroon is not an ECOWAS member state, it geographically and historically is in West Africa with the Southern Cameroons which now form her Northwest and Southwest Regions having a strong West African history. The country is sometimes identified as West African and other times as Central African due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West and Central Africa.

Doualart

doual'art is a non profit cultural organisation and art centre founded in 1991 in Douala, Cameroon and focussed on new urban practices of African cities.

Before its construction, Danièle Diwouta-Kotto, an architect whose firm secured the prime contractor, had had several conversations with the community. During these exchanges, the architect had invited people to imagine what might look like a fire hydrant ideal.

The people of Bessengu-Akwa wanted a framework that would be a meeting point, would offer an attractive sight and would also provide water. Following the interviews, the architect has made several proposals and people chose the model that corresponded most to their expectations.

Water chemical compound

Water is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's streams, lakes, and oceans, and the fluids of most living organisms. It is vital for all known forms of life, even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients. Its chemical formula is H2O, meaning that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, connected by covalent bonds. Water is the name of the liquid state of H2O at standard ambient temperature and pressure. It forms precipitation in the form of rain and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds are formed from suspended droplets of water and ice, its solid state. When finely divided, crystalline ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is steam or water vapor. Water moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation, transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea.

This small building was therefore conceived as a public and paying fountain, as well as a food outlet. In particular, the roof reflects the style of the ephemeral building, created by the artist Jesús Palomino, in the workshop Bessengue City organized by Goddy Leye and theart center ArtBakery. [1]

Goddy Leye Artist from Cameroun

Goddy Leye was a Cameroonian artist and intellectual.

artBakery

ArtBakery is an art centre based in the village of Bonendale a few kilometers from Douala and founded by Goddy Leye. The centre offers trainings for emerging artists, journalists and residency programs for young artists (Portfolio). ArtBakery is specifically designed to technically support the production of multimedia artworks, video and digital art.

It is restored in 2013, the walls being repeinted.

See also

Bibliographie

International Standard Book Number Unique numeric book identifier

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.

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The SUD Salon Urbain de Douala is a triennial festival of public art and contemporary art organised in Douala, Cameroon. The festival had its first edition in 2007 and it is promoted by the art centre and cultural organisation doual'art.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Douala, Cameroon.

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<i>Arbre à palabres</i> (Bonambappe) artwork in Douala

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<i>Face à l’eau</i> Artwork in Douala

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The Trinity Session is a contemporary art production team directed by Stephen Hobbs and Marcus Neustetter.

References

  1. ↑ CAMEROON: The aesthetics of water in IRIN for Humanitarian Affairs and Analysis of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 20/05/2008;

Contemporary African art is commonly understood to be art made by artists in Africa and the African diaspora in the post-independence era. However, there are about as many understandings of contemporary African art as there are curators, scholars and artists working in that field. All three terms of this "wide-reaching noncategory [sic]" are problematic in themselves: What exactly is "contemporary", what makes art "African", and when are we talking about art and not any other kind of creative expression? Western scholars and curators have made numerous attempts at defining contemporary African art in the 1990s and early 2000s and proposed a range of categories and genres. They triggered heated debates and controversies especially on the foundations of postcolonial critique. Recent trends indicate a far more relaxed engagement with definitions and identity ascriptions. The global presence and entanglement of Africa and its contemporary artists have become a widely acknowledged fact that still requires and provokes critical reflection but finds itself beyond the pressure of self-justification.

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