Cotonou, ville sans histoire? (Cotonou, a city without history?) was the question posed by one of the special exhibitions at the world-class Fondation Zinsou, Benin’s first contemporary art museum. I’ll discuss the museum and its own history later on in the post, but this idea that Cotonou is a city without a past struck a chord with me. Perhaps this explains why I didn’t fully connect with Benin’s economic center, vastly preferring its laid-back capital and museum haven, Porto-Novo.
Cotonou is a city living in the now. There is art, culture and history on display, of course, but nothing will outrank a massive sale at Dantokpa, Cotonou’s grande marché, or the latest shipment of cargo containers being unloaded at Cotonou’s impressive port. It’s quite possible to see all the highlights of Cotonou in a single day, despite or perhaps because of the fact that none of them are in walking distance from one another. This will force you to take a zem (short for zemidjan, which translates to, “Get me there quickly,” in Fon) from place to place, leaving little time to leisurely explore the city like one can in Porto, or even Lomé and Accra.
The surprise for me was that most backpackers on the West African circuit prefer to base themselves in Cotonou when visiting Benin, creating easy day trips to Porto, Abomey, Ouidah and Ganvie. That’s all well and good, but the problem is that there’s so much to see and do in these other cities that a day trip will leave you seriously shortchanged. (I spent four nights in Porto alone and could easily have extended my stay to a week without fear of boredom.) So after this whole preamble, what is there to do in Cotonou?
Grande Marché de Dantokpa
Lomé’s grande marché may have been my favorite market I visited during this three week trip through Ghana, Togo and Benin, but the market in Cotonou’s Dantokpa neighborhood ranks as one of the largest in West Africa and it, along with the Port of Cotonou, are the two greatest contributing factors to Cotonou’s economic dominance. It’s estimated that Dantokpa brings in 1 billion cfa in sales each day, and once you enter the maze of the market beware, as you may never find your way out again.
I did snatch up a few meters of cloth as a gift for my mother, but most of my time at Dantokpa was spent buying food and drink, instantly eating and drinking said food and drink, and then proceeding to buy more food and drink. The street food in West Africa really is terrific, and although other vendors tried their best to sell me watches, shoes and car batteries, all I wanted was a fresh baguette stuffed with fresh vegetables and slathered in spicy sauces.
To be honest, I have no idea what exactly was in this juice pictured above (the ingredients listed in French were beyond my vocabulary word bank), but one of the sellers gave me a small sample and I was hooked. Just a reminder: if you don’t bring your own bottle, juices will not be sold in cups, but rather in tied off plastic bags. I watched with amazement as people would rip off a corner of the bag with their teeth and drink the juice directly from the torn opening. I tried this once with a bag of water and it spilled right down my shirt (some kids got a good laugh), so I didn’t dare try again with this sure-to-stain juice.
Notre Dame de Miséricorde (Our Lady of Mercy)
Known by locals simply as Cotonou Cathedral, this red and white-striped building looks like it belongs at the North Pole with Santa and his elves more so than along the balmy Cotonou coast. The cathedral is located near the Port and every zem driver knows the distinctive structure, making it a great reference point when giving directions to other sites in the area. The Catholic Church established their Cotonou base in 1883, relatively late on Dahomey’s historical timeline. Once again, the people of Cotonou were an after thought compared to its well-developed economic interests.
Plakodji-Plage and the Cotonou Lighthouse
One of the few sights I walked to (from the cathedral) was the Cotonou Lighthouse. Originally built in 1910 to guide ships into the port, this is the third and final iteration of the lighthouse, which was constructed in 1968. When I returned to my hostel that evening and relayed to the owners all of my activities, they were rather surprised that I had opted to walk through Plakodji-Plage, the neighborhood to the east of Cotonou Cathedral where the lighthouse is located. Apparently it is one of the poorest areas in the city, with some of the highest crime rates. The hostel owners called it a slum and warned against returning there without a guide.
It was obvious that Plakodji-Plage wasn’t Cotonou’s poshest spot, but I was taken aback by their negative reaction. I never once felt any danger; to the contrary: people were quite welcoming and I even bought a bowl of Akpan at a local cantina, sharing some laughs with the children who had gathered to watch me eat. Maybe it would have been unwise to visit the lighthouse after dark, but in the daylight hours no one bothered me.
Cornetto Italian Ice Cream
In Cotonou’s hip fashion, ice cream parlors have popped up all over town, one of which is located right across the street from the cathedral. There’s always time to make a pit stop for ice cream and Cornetto’s retro 1980’s vibe was too much for me to pass up. My coconut and mango ice creams were both delicious and the service was great too. Free WiFi was the cherry on top and let me map out the next few stops on my whirlwind sightseeing tour.
Fondation Zinsou
What Centre Songhaï did for agriculture, the Fondation Zinsou has done for Béninois (and West African) contemporary art. This museum is easily the highlight of any trip to Cotonou and should be on the short list, along with its sister branch in Ouidah, for best contemporary art museum in the world.
Fondation Zinsou was created in 2005 by Marie-Cécile Zinsou, who is a descendant from an impressive Béninois lineage. Her great-uncle was Émile Derlin Zinsou, the President of Dahomey for one year from 1968-69. (He was installed by a military coup and shortly removed by another one!) Zinsou strongly opposed the Marxist-Leninist government of Lt. Col. Kérékou, who came to power in 1972, abolishing all traces of democracy within Dahomey and renaming the country the People’s Republic of Benin a few years later. Zinsou fled to Paris in 1973 where he lived in exile for the next 17 years. Kérékou sentenced him to death in absentia, but he was pardoned when Kérékou was finally ousted from office in 1990 and Marxism-Leninism was formally banned in Benin. Zinsou passed away in 2016 at the ripe old age of 98.
Émile’s nephew and Marie’s father, Lionel Zinsou, was born in Paris, but became active in Béninois politics post-1990. An enterprising businessman, he served as Prime Minister before making an unsuccessful run for president in 2016. Marie, who has both French and Béninois citizenship, has devoted her life to promoting contemporary art and its artists throughout West Africa. The inaugural museum in Cotonou proved to be such a triumph, that Marie opened an off-shoot branch in Ouidah in 2013 to allow more of the permanent collection to be viewed by the public.
Cotonou, ville sans histoire?
There were two exhibitions at Fondation Zinsou when I visited, the first of which being “Cotonou, ville sans histoire?” When Riccardo Ciavolella and Armelle Choplin assembled this collection, they wanted to delve into the heart of Cotonou’s identity. For all the praise Cotonou receives as the “de-facto capital” of Benin, it seems adrift when the subject veers away from its economic prowess. Abomey was the pre-colonial capital of Dahomey and its Royal Palace complex is one of Benin’s most cherished UNESCO sites. Porto-Novo is the true capital and cultural center, not to mention it is the headquarters of the esteemed Centre Songhaï. Ouidah is the hub of Benin’s slave trading past (as well as a Vodun stronghold) and Grand Popo has the best beaches and resorts in the country. What does that leave for Cotonou?
Of course, Cotonou does have a history, even if the official record doesn’t have much to say before the 1830s. Cotonou is a Fon word that mean, “By the river of death,” which refers to the trans Atlantic slave trade that sadly flourished here before slavery was abolished in Europe and the Americas. King Ghezo of Dahomey signed a treaty with the French in 1851 allowing them to build a trading post in Cotonou that would eventually morph into the port that controls all the country’s imports and exports. Ciavolella and Choplin uncovered old photos with images of Cotonou from the early decades of the 20th Century, revealing a rare look at what life was like in city that has its eyes firmly focused on the future.
This interactive piece allows you to match Cotonou’s neighborhoods with brief descriptors. Like many museums in Benin, admission to Fondation Zinsou is free, but you must have a guide to look at the exhibits. Seeing as how I knew nothing about the various neighborhoods in the city, my guide got a good laugh at me attempting to make educated guesses (read: stabs in the dark) before filling me in with the stories behind the hints.
The curators also took pictures of crumbling cinemas and other vestiges of Kérékou’s communist dystopia. This series felt very much in line with art I had seen on my trips to the Baltics and Caucasus as younger generations tried to make sense of their parents’ occupied pasts. Speaking of the younger generations, Fondation Zinsou also funds arts initiatives in schools all over Benin, and organizes trips to the museum where there is a classroom to teach the students modern art techniques in the hopes of planting the seeds in aspiring artists and future art lovers.
The last piece in the exhibition is a sketch of an imagined Cotonou, one with a National Museum of Art, Library, House of Artists, Social Services Office and more. This is a rendering of Cotonou’s unrealized potential. A dream of the people and their art, culture and history thriving in a metropolis that has always placed these things lower on the to-do list. Cotonou should be known as a city of opportunity, where the youth of Benin can go to find jobs and their place in the global community, but there is also hope that Cotonou can uncover its past in the future as these timelines solidify and allow the city to finally emerge with a three-dimensional identity.
L’Afrique n’est pas une île
The second exhibition titled, “L’Afrique n’est pas une île” (Africa is not an island), dealt with the African diaspora and how those of African heritage remain connected to their homeland even when they’re living abroad. This includes both those who left African willing to live as ex-pats in a foreign country and those who were taken centuries ago in the slave trade.
Like the previous exhibition, “Africa is not an island” deals with identity, but this time it’s not the nature of a city that’s in question, but rather what it even means to be African to begin with. If you were born in Benin, perhaps it is obvious that you are Béninois, but what if you are Béninois and living in India or Japan or Vietnam or the United States? Does living abroad weaken your connection to the Motherland or strengthen it? How do you hold onto your roots while navigating daily life in a foreign country and being an active participant in that culture too? This series of photographs explores how the diaspora blends their West African past with their multi-cultural present.
Place de l’Étoile Rouge
When Kérékou declared Benin a Marxist-Leninist State, he instantly gained an ally in the Soviet Union. This five-point red star with its centerpiece column and statue of a “brave man” were a gift from the Soviets in 1975 to commemorate Kérékou’s entering the communist fold. In true absurdist communist fashion, although this monument was erected to celebrated the common worker and how valued they were within the communist system, the square was strictly off-limits to the average citizen between 1975-90.
The figure atop the central podium is officially titled “brave man” and was meant to act as a place holder for every worker in Benin. The local residents of Cotonou began referring to him as Jacob and somehow the name stuck. In Jacob’s left hand is a bundle of firewood, from which 90% of Benin’s population derived power for their homes at the time. A hoe is held in Jacob’s right hand, symbolizing the importance of agricultural life in Benin.
Underneath the star are depictions of soldiers and their weapons, reminding the people of their compulsory military service upon turning eighteen. The irony that the symbols in this square were meant to motivate Cotonou’s citizens and keep them in line with Kérékou’s agenda, and yet none of them were allowed anywhere near the monument must have been completely lost on Kérékou. Much cognitive dissonance is required to live under a dictatorship that is loudly proclaiming how free you are!
Place des Martyrs
On January 16, 1977, Bob Denard, a French mercenary who led dozens of military coups throughout the former French colonies in Africa (all allegedly ordered and financed by the French government), organized Opération Crevette (Operation Shrimp), a failed coup and assassination attempt against Kérékou. North Korean intelligence caught wind of the coup and tipped off Kérékou who was prepared for the attack. Denard and his eighty mercenaries were defeated, though Denard escaped, and seven Béninois citizens (six soldiers and one civilian) were killed defending Kérékou. Two years later, on January 16, 1979, the statue dedicated to the seven Béninois who died was unveiled at the Place des Martyrs. The monument depicts two men with guns and one woman with the flag of Benin ready to defend the country against all outside threats. (Kérékou was paranoid, but with good reason: the coup was also supported by the leaders of Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon and Morocco who viewed Kérékou and his policies as a menance in the region.)
Institut Français du Benin (French Institute of Benin) formerly the Centre Culturel Français (French Cultural Center)
The French Institute is a genuine rarity: a free museum and cultural center that is actually free to visit without being shown around by a guide. For decades the institution was known as the Centre Culturel Français (CCF), having only recently changed it’s name to the extremely similar Institut Français. Beware that the zem drivers all know the CCF, but will have a blank stare if you try to ask to go to the Institut Français! Whatever you call the place, it is home to movies, lectures, contemporary art exhibits, language classes and more. There is a garden and restaurant in the rear as well. France tries to maintain cultural and political bonds with its former West African colonies, and places like the Institut Français, where both French and Fon are taught, go a long way towards bridging the gap between France’s role as former occupier and newfound ally.
A special treat awaited for me in the form of Béninois sculptor Sébastien Boko’s “Voiles” (Veils). Boko was born in 1984 and is himself the son of a professional Béninois sculptor. In 2005, Boko attended an art academy in Cotonou and experienced a stroke of luck while working in his storefront studio several years later. The Minister of Energy, Jean-Claude Houssou, was taking his usual Sunday stroll through Cotonou with his wife when they decided to deviate from their typical route and happened upon Boko’s studio. The couple instantly fell in love with Boko’s pieces and become vocal champions and supporters of his work. Finally, after many years featured at smaller galleries around the city, Boko was given his chance on the big stage at the Institut Français where he premiered his series “Veils” to much acclaim.
The veiled figures are grouped into several categories (women, military, travelers) and the veils mean different things to the members of each group. Some veils offer protection, while others mask nefarious intentions, hypocrisy and corruption. Some veils promote modesty, while others draw your attention to figure’s face. A veil is a mask, but it does not completely obscure one’s facial features the way a mask does, but rather it blurs reality, causing you to think you have an understanding of a person’s intentions, when perhaps you are misreading the situation.
The whimsical figures themselves are craved from wood native to Benin and although they wear little clothing, their naked forms give us few clues as to their identities and motives. The women are dignified, the travelers are comical and the military have no upper halves, but what is a distraction and what is the truth?
I didn’t dine at the institute’s restaurant, but I did take some time to wander through the beautiful gardens and reflect on my time in Benin and West Africa. I only had a few more days before I was to fly back to New York and I was overtaken by a tremendous melancholy as I thought of returning to my “normal” life and leaving all my new friends behind (for the time being). The goodbyes and see you laters are the hardest part about traveling. When will I see Edem or Robert again? What about Richmond and Igor and Cousin? You can hold onto the happy memories, but are these memories enough to sustain yourself? How am I supposed to visit every world capital when all I want to do is return to Accra, Lomé and Porto over and over again? It’s like ordering the same meal at your favorite restaurant time and time again. Sure, you could try something new, but what if it’s not as good as the amazing dish you always get? Standing in the middle of this gorgeous garden I felt pity for next West African capital I would visit as my first foray into the region had set a ridiculously high standard.
Perhaps Cotonou had pulled a bait and switch on me. The exhibition at Fondation Zinsou questioned whether the city had a history and identity, and while messy and chaotic, I found Cotonou to already contain the building blocks to become a vibrant, cultural destination. What it requires is someone with some patience, fortitude and a few bright ideas to gather the pieces and put the puzzle together.
