Raven M. - Patrick Willocq

Patrick Willocq is a photographer, who is one of the 5 Winners of POPCAP’14. Patrick won the award for the 2013 series titled, I am Walé Respect Me. For this project, he dove deeply into an initiation ritual of the Ekonda pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Ekondas believe that the most important moment in the life of a woman is the birth of her first child.

The young mother (usually 15 to 18) is called Walé (“primiparous nursing mother“). She returns to her parents where she remains secluded for a period of 2 to 5 years. During her seclusion, a Walé is under very special care. She must also respect a taboo on sex during the whole period and is given a similar status to that of a patriarch. The end of her seclusion is marked by a dancing and singing ritual. The choreography and the songs have a very codified structure but also contain unique qualities specific to each Walé. She sings the story of her own loneliness, and with humor praises her own behavior while discrediting her Walé rivals.

This series is a personal reflection of women in general and the Walé ritual specifically. But first and foremost, it is the result of a unique collaboration with young pygmy women, their respective clans, an ethnomusicologist, an artist and many artisans of the forest. Working together, our mutual experiences become richer giving birth to “I am Walé Respect Me”.

I posted this artist, Patrick Willocq, because as I'm working through our artist introspection presentations it reminds me how much I believe storytelling is an integral part of art-making. Even if the viewer doesn't know the context of the story or the tradition of the story, it don't negate it's purpose and context within the piece because it's such a necessary part of the art-making. And of course, one could easily separate an image from it's context and comment on the pure aesthetic beauty of the image (as in Willocq's series) by why do that? Why take away something that could so greatly enhance the process of consuming art? When I came upon this series, I obviously didn't know much about the Ekonda pygmies in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but was still in awe of the creativity and surreal nature of the work but it was when I given context of the work that my experience was enhanced.

http://patrickwillocq.com