{"id":1172,"date":"2026-10-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2026-10-30T00:20:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T23:20:21","slug":"mandombe-lukasa-la-memoire-en-signes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/mandombe-lukasa-la-memoire-en-signes\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandombe, lukasa: memory in signs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Documenting contemporary art also means tracing its lineages. Some of today\u2019s works can only be fully understood in the light of older sign systems, designed to fix and transmit memory. Two of them, born in Central Africa, run through the painting of <a href=\"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/artistes\/benjamin-mbenga\/\">Benjamin Mbenga<\/a>; le lukasa et l\u2019\u00e9criture mandombe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The lukasa, a memory you can touch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Le lukasa est une planche mn\u00e9monique en bois associ\u00e9e au royaume luba, dans le sud-est de l\u2019actuelle R\u00e9publique d\u00e9mocratique du Congo. Sa surface porte des perles, des coquillages et des motifs incis\u00e9s. Entre les mains des membres de l\u2019association mbudye, form\u00e9s \u00e0 sa lecture, elle servait \u00e0 rem\u00e9morer des r\u00e9cits, des g\u00e9n\u00e9alogies, des lieux et des listes de souverains. Chaque \u00e9l\u00e9ment, par sa position et sa forme, renvoie \u00e0 une information; la m\u00e9moire y est spatiale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mandombe, a script of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mandombe is a writing system that appeared in 1978 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, devised by Wabeladio Payi. Based on geometric forms, it is used to transcribe several Congolese languages and has been spread in particular by the Kimbanguist Church. It is a reminder that African graphic invention does not belong only to the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dans ces \u0153uvres, le signe s&rsquo;archive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When the sign becomes painting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chez Benjamin Mbenga, ces syst\u00e8mes structurent l\u2019image. La g\u00e9om\u00e9trie de m\u00e9moire du lukasa et les signes du mandombe s\u2019associent au portrait r\u00e9aliste pour faire du visage une archive, un lieu o\u00f9 se n\u00e9gocient la souverainet\u00e9 pass\u00e9e et l\u2019urgence contemporaine. Sa s\u00e9rie \u00ab\u00a0Anc\u00eatres Biblioth\u00e8que\u00a0\u00bb le dit sans d\u00e9tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cette d\u00e9marche rejoint la vocation de la rubrique Empreinte,\u00a0celle de suivre les archives, les g\u00e9n\u00e9alogies plastiques et la documentation de la m\u00e9moire visuelle. Elle rappelle surtout que la modernit\u00e9 africaine ne se construit pas contre ses savoirs, mais avec eux.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long before the digital archive, Central Africa devised sophisticated devices for preserving and transmitting memory. Contemporary artists are reinvesting them.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-empreinte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1250,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/1250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regartmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}