An Exhibition Research Lab exhibition at Liverpool John Moores University, weaving together historical and contemporary voices
Yvon Ngassam, View of Mount Mbanga. Bikoka, Lolodorf, 2021. Courtesy the Artist and Bikoka Art Project.
Exhibition Research Lab (ERL) presents ‘What the Mountain Has Seen’, an exhibition curated by Dr Christine Eyene, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art at Liverpool John Moores University and Research Curator at Tate Liverpool. On view until 31 October 2025, the exhibition brings together archival material and contemporary artworks exploring the memory of the land, botanical histories, and colonial legacies connecting Liverpool and Lolodorf, Cameroon.
Building on Dr Eyene’s research, the exhibition retraces the journeys of American missionaries who travelled to Cameroon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on ships operated by the Liverpool-based African Steamship Company, later part of Elder Dempster. It also examines forced labour practices imposed by colonial administrations, highlighting the extraction of vegetal, mineral, animal, and cultural resources that benefitted Germany, France, the United States, Great Britain, and Liverpool.
At the centre of the exhibition is Mount Mbanga, a natural landmark in Lolodorf that features in both colonial photographs and contemporary artworks. The mountain serves as a symbolic witness to the intertwined histories of land, community, and empire.
Featured Artists and Works:
- Yvon Ngassam: Lolodorf: A Colonial Story (2022) is a film combining oral history, myth, and fact through the voices of elders and youth in Lolodorf.
- Jean David Nkot: Le chemin de fer (Underground Railroad) (2023), linking forced labour in Cameroon with the histories of enslaved Africans in the Americas, centred on Harriet Tubman and the Berlin Conference (1884–85).
- Boris Nzebo: Ville Surprise (2010–11), a collage series on human and plant resilience in the urban context of Douala.
- Joy Gregory: Invisible Life Force of Plants (2020), cyanotypes drawn from her research into Britain’s economic botany in the 17th–19th centuries, set against the backdrop of the transatlantic trade.
- Shiraz Bayjoo: Pu Travers Sa Dilo (2023), a fabric-based installation combining images of European expeditions to East Africa, the Indian Ocean, maroon forests, and indigenous trees.
- Freya Tewelde: Works from Roots of Resonance: The Baobab Tree Project (2022–23), connecting the baobab tree, sound, and the Abyssinian Negarit drum.
The project is grounded in Dr Eyene’s family ties to Lolodorf, where she draws on living memory alongside colonial archives. By interweaving personal, local, and global histories, ‘What the Mountain Has Seen’ highlights overlooked connections between Britain’s imperial economy and African communities.
The exhibition also forms the research foundation for ‘The Plant that Stowed Away’, presented earlier in 2025 at Tate Liverpool + RIBA North, which explored the conflict between nature and industrialisation in Liverpool and beyond.
‘What the Mountain Has Seen’ is on view at the Exhibition Research Lab, Liverpool John Moores University, until 31 October 2025.
