‘The World Reimagined’, Globe trail, London,

Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square and Mornington Crescent, London

A queered interpretation of Cameroon’s traditional Toghu cloth, taking up space in the way that many queer Cameroonians cannot safely do.

As a queer artist with Cameroonian heritage, born in Cardiff, raised in Reading and the Ivory Coast, and now living in Glasgow, my personal Black history combines conflicting extremes of privilege, which have left me feeling unsettled in every culture. There is also the dizzying conflict of being bisexual whilst being raised in spaces filled with ambient homophobia, and growing up in the relatively liberal UK whilst knowing Cameroon’s homophobia to be an inherently colonialist, Christian and eurocentric conceit. The reasons for this internal conflict cannot be erased, but I would like to evolve them into something celebratory, both for myself, and for other queer Cameroonians.

My globe depicts an interpretation of Toghu cloth, the traditional textile of Cameroon. This is typically made of black velvet and richly embroidered in red, gold and white chain stitching. I have chosen to depict this embroidery in pink. Queerness will be literally embroidered into the fabric of Cameroon, forcing the viewer to grapple with the complexity of my community. I have also included a repeated motif of a carved wooden mask, which is based on a fourteenth century Cameroonian mask currently held in the British Museum. The presence of this mask, looted from Cameroon and currently held in Britain, raises questions about which colonial imports Cameroonians choose to uphold. In an idealised world, Cameroonian homophobia would be repatriated in exchange for its priceless cultural artefacts.

In the world we currently inhabit, I believe queer Cameroonians must carve out our own versions of Cameroonian identity. The black and pink patterned globe is intended to be visually bold, taking up all the space that queer Cameroonians often cannot safely fill. I hope that it will give queer Cameroonians throughout the diaspora a sense of reclaimed power.