Lola ya Bonobo
“When babies arrive here, we first need to restore their desire to live because they’ve lost it. They’ve been robbed of what was essential to them: motherly affection.” Claudine
Abstracts
"When I decided to start off my second volume of women’s portraits with one of a female bonobo, in the way that I’d prefaced the first volume with a portrait of Lucy, I kept hearing: 'A monkey! Keep away from anthropomorphism. How ridiculous!' But if there’s one thing that I’m wary about, it’s anthrocentrism. (…) I owe it to Claudine for selecting Semendua as a representative, in this work, of the community of our distant river cousins, the bonobos.
Semendua’s story echoes that of almost all of the bonobos gathered here. They are all orphans of bush-meat trafficking and victims of military clashes. Semendua was one of the most approachable ones in the group even if she had lived in semi-liberty with her own kind for several years in the forty hectares of the protected forest of Lola ya Bonobo (“Paradise of the Bonobos” in Lingala), near Kinshasa."
Extract from Zoé Zoé, Femmes du mondes, 2007, Éditions Gallimard
Works
![DRC, KINSHASA 1856](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/element-block/public/uploads/oeuvre/tit_2017_oeuvres_claudine_et_semendua.jpg?itok=s6bvMsEv)
Kinshasa, DRC
Gouache enhanced silver print
24 x 30 cm
![DRC, KINSHASA 1858](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/element-block/public/uploads/oeuvre/tit_2017_oeuvres_claudine.jpg?itok=ZtSOtlo7)
Kinshasa, DRC
Acrylic on paper
46 x 37 cm
![DRC, KINSHASA 1863](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/element-block/public/uploads/oeuvre/tit_2017_oeuvres_semendua.jpg?itok=EKyl6F0_)
Kinshasa, DRC
Gouache enhanced silver print
30 x 40 cm
![DRC, KINSHASA 1871](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/element-block/public/uploads/oeuvre/tit_2017_oeuvres_dessins_de_semendua.jpg?itok=2ziOKP59)
Kinshasa, DRC
Pencil on paper
37 x 46 cm
![DRC, KINSHASA 1867](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/element-block/public/uploads/oeuvre/tit_2017_oeuvres_semendua2.jpg?itok=PtKDBHI9)
Kinshasa, DRC
Gouache enhanced silver print
40 x 30 cm
![DRC, KINSHASA 268](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/element-block/public/uploads/oeuvre/tit_2017_oeuvres_bonobo_2.jpg?itok=9rmFzmBQ)
Kinshasa, DRC
Acrylic on paper
46 x 37 cm
![DRC, KINSHASA 2568](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/element-block/public/uploads/oeuvre/tit_2017_oeuvres_lola_ya_bonobo.jpg?itok=nbIWgYcl)
Kinshasa, DRC
C-Print
120 x 200 cm
Making-of
![Illustration Making Of](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/width-half/public/uploads/illustration/tit_2017_makingof_rdc_kinshasa.jpg?itok=Hzd4cjx-)
© Gwen Le Bras
![Illustration Making Of](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/width-half/public/uploads/illustration/tit_2017_makingof_rdc_kinshasa2.jpg?itok=qu_2PkMx)
© Gwen Le Bras
![Illustration Making Of](https://artiste.titouanlamazou.com/sites/default/files/styles/width-half/public/uploads/illustration/tit_2017_makingof_rdc_kinshasa3.jpg?itok=-LQGl3ek)
© Gwen Le Bras
Images by Claire Nicol