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Nataal speaks to Njaheut about how he found his calling as an artist

Njaheut grew up in Cameroon and left to live in Brussels at the age of ten. “My first struggle was with my accent, and this is where my introduction to the problems surrounding identity stem from.” He spent his childhood drawing and sketching, much to his father’s dismay. “In Cameroon, you are only encouraged to pursue careers such as a lawyer, doctor or architect and so my father continually tried to stop me doing art,” he explains. However, he persisted and finally his father caved and allowed him to go to the art school Saint Luc in Brussels. “This was the first ‘yes’ I ever received to follow a creative career and so I developed a profound need to be the best I could be. The pressure was high to prove that I could do this,” Njaheut explains.

I transform everyone into a shadow to propose a universal race
Photographer Njaheut Gilles Valer tries to capture his vision of society with his lens. We met him at the expo This is what you came for by Els Dietvorst and the BARЯA MOVEMENT. After visiting the double exhibition at Bozar and CENTRALE, we reflected on what it means to see the process of making art as a collaborative ritual.