Anguezomo Nzé Mba Bikoro’s artistic practice revolves around reparation and healing of colonial traumas. They use visual arts and site-based performance to examine BIPoC histories that have been systematically erased from official archives. In reconstructing stories of Black resistance movements—particularly those led by women—Bikoro draws upon Indigenous somatic practices and decolonizing rituals. Through honouring ancestors and restoring visibility of forgotten histories, Bikoro strives for individual empowerment and collective de-traumatization. As they state in Madame Tirailleurs (2018): ‘If you don’t count them, they don’t exist. They’re not part of history.’ The stories of the Tirailleurs have been largely defined by a mix of paternalizing admiration and racist narratives, obscuring their individuality. Lesser known are the histories of the Asian and African women involved who were central figures of resistance—fighting for the liberation of their captured men and sons, and often becoming prisoners themselves. The film Madame Tirailleurs (2018) is a determined response to this absence. Filmed in Saint-Louis, the former capital of the Colony of Senegal and initial place of recruitment of Tirailleurs since 1857, Bikoro walks with a group of descendants of female and male Tirailleurs as they move through the city, in a ritual of sharing oral histories and photographs of the African women fighters in the Second World War. The group is accompanied by a herd of goats—a nod to the farmers, that are the families of the Tirailleurs, whose labour and local agricultural knowledge was exploited under colonial rule. Just as the procession is about to reach the infamous Saint-Louis prison, a site of the brutal punishment by the colonizers against rebellious efforts, the goats start screeching, echoing a chorus of women. Voices suppressed for decades, buried under blood-soaked soil, resurface to be insistently heard.

Work in the exhibition: Madame Tirailleurs (2018), 1-channel video, sound, colour, 3' 18", French with En/Ger subs. Courtesy of the artist