ART FORMS
Collage, painting
MATERIALS/MEDIA
E-waste
GUIDING INTEREST
Desire Koffi is a promising artist first of all through his work and his commitment to his community and his country.
Mounou’s work is a critique of the consumer society and he wants to make consumers responsible for the imprint they leave on the planet.
Evrything starter when He saw children in his neighborhood of Abidjian playing with old cell phones. He decided to give his phones a second life by turning them into an artwork.
For the beginning he was alone into the streets of Abidjian to collect all the phones lying around and educate the population about the ecological and healthy problem of electronic waste. He is then joined by several people whom he pays to help him.
Today, 2 years later, it s the population who directly bring him old phones.
With 25 millions people, the Ivory Coast produces around 1500 tonnes of electronic waste each year – not counting imported wast. But this scourge transcends borders and “the whole African continent is concerned”, laments the visual artist. This is why Desire plans to install other teams on the same model in Benin, Mali or Guinea.
QUOTE
“My painting highlight what they (the childrens) are going trough and claim their right to education, to freedom, their right to live”.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2019 PARIS, Galerie ART-Z, « Déconnexion »
BIO
Desire Koffi alias “le peintre mounou” is a 25 year old plastic artist born in Ivory Coast. Son of coffee and cocoa farmers in the south-west of the country, Desire changed his distiny. Very early on, the boy discoverd a passion for drawing. The school principal nominates him to participate in a drawing competition which he wins, in front of students from 25 different schools. And in high school, his art teacher encouraged him to improve his skills in Abidjan. The young man follows the advice and integrates the fine arts in Abidjan (INSAAC) after an artistic baccalaureate from which he graduated from his class.
LINK
https://www.instagram.com/mounou.desire/?hl=fr
AUTHOR
Florence Vieira