ARTIST STATEMENT: 

Bona Bantu is a mixed-media collection exploring the cultural heritage of the Sawa peoples of Cameroon, who are among the Bantu peoples of Africa. It comes from a need to retrace the history and connections between Bantu peoples through an analysis of our languages and cultural practices. "Bantu" is an ethnolinguistic group comprising approximately 400 ethnic groups from Central Africa to Southern Africa. They have in common their expression of the word “people”. In Duala it is "Bato", in Lingala it is "Batu", in Xhosa it is "Abantu", in Swahili it is "Anthu". Even though there are many apparent similarities between the Bantu languages and cultures, much of our pre-Western colonization history has been lost, along with the connections between our peoples. This collection is a means of retracing my roots, from the Wouri estuary in Douala to ancient Egypt and Nubia. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Diane Din Ebongue is a Cameroonian-born and French-raised interdisciplinary artist and arts manager with a strong interest in intangible cultural heritage, African cultural studies, empowerment processes and knowledge sharing through arts. Her artistic practice includes video, photography, interactive media, creative writing, painting, and mixed media installations.  

After working for five years as an audiovisual technician and digital project manager in France, she moved to Australia in 2019 and spent two years working for Indigenous art centres. She moved to Canada in December 2021 and became part of the 2022 cohort of the Immigrant Arts Mentorship Program (IAMP) run by the Immigrant Council for Arts Innovation in Calgary (ICAI).  

Diane Din Ebongue holds a Master of Sciences, Arts and Techniques of Image and Sound from Aix-Marseille University in France. Her work has been selected for competitive residencies, exhibitions, publications, festivals and film screenings in France, Cameroon, Belgium, and Canada.