We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.
If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on this website.

DRC, KINSHASA


2005

Bébés bonobos, 2005

Kinshasa, DRC
Acrylic on paper (detail)

Titouan header arrow
Back to travels
DRC, KINSHASA
2005

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
Claudine et Semendua, 2005

Kinshasa, DRC
Gouache enhanced silver print
24 x 30 cm

DRC, KINSHASA 1858
Claudine, 2005

Kinshasa, DRC
Acrylic on paper
46 x 37 cm

DRC, KINSHASA 1863
Semendua, 2005

Kinshasa, DRC
Gouache enhanced silver print
30 x 40 cm

DRC, KINSHASA 1871
Dessins de Semendua, 2005

Kinshasa, DRC
Pencil on paper
37 x 46 cm

DRC, KINSHASA 1867
Semendua 2, 2005

Kinshasa, DRC
Gouache enhanced silver print
40 x 30 cm

DRC, KINSHASA 268
Bébés bonobos, 2005

Kinshasa, DRC
Acrylic on paper
46 x 37 cm

DRC, KINSHASA 2568
Lola ya bonobo, 2005

Kinshasa, DRC
C-Print
120 x 200 cm

Making-of

Illustration Making Of
"I had a farm of bonobos in Africa", 2005

© Gwen Le Bras

Illustration Making Of
Semendua and her work, 2005

© Gwen Le Bras

Illustration Making Of
Loving model, 2005

© Gwen Le Bras

Film by Marc Jampolsky

Images by Claire Nicol

Books

Back to top