Christian Nyampeta: Words after the World

About

Words after the World is an exhibition which builds on Nyampeta’s recent residency at Camden Arts Centre. During this time, Nyampeta hosted a scriptorium, in which he convened a working group to translate Francophone texts by philosophers such as Alexis Kagame and Maniragaba Balibutsa. This collective structure led to the production of the script for Nyampeta’s new film, which conveys a fictional writer attempting to complete a novella at a time when the use of existing words is restricted by copyright: as a result, the writer is compelled to craft new words in order to avoid both silence and persecution.

Nyampeta’s film is presented in Gallery 3 within an installation that he describes as a ‘hosting structure’. This encompasses murals across the gallery walls, furniture constructions, and a dossier reflecting on the process of producing the film script. Nyampeta creates a space for the study of the making and the communion of knowledge. He asks: what happens if words and meaning were subjected to prohibition? What synonyms could be created to replace them? The working group will continue to convene, to translate and to publish throughout the duration of the exhibition.