Gbegbetopia—Maison Gbegbe: An Art-Based Community and Spiritual Center

Maison Gbegbe is a cultural center in Togo that aims to bring together different cultures, traditions, religions, and knowledge systems, and to create a space for exchange, reconciliation, and critical thinking. The project is a collaborative effort involving members of the Union des Cultes Traditionnels du Togo (UCTT) in Agouegan, L’Africaine d’Architecture, art&dialogue e.V., and a pre-configuration committee. Maison Gbegbe uses artistic research as a collaborative process to address ecological and social crises and to shift paradigms in the way people engage with knowledge and knowledge transfer. The project proposes to sensitize international audiences to other knowledge systems beyond Western epistemology, and to provide opportunities for locals and others to reconnect with and rediscover traditional African cosmologies along the Togolese coast. Maison Gbegbe is intended to serve as a space for exchange and dialogue with the goal of preserving and transmitting traditional and spiritual knowledge. It hopes to provide a place for returned and restituted West African cultural and spiritual assets to be reintegrated into an appropriate context. This publication provides an overview of the process of and motivations behind its creation.