Youmbi’s contributions to this project honor his collaborations with skilled artists in the Grassfields region of Cameroon. Working collaboratively allows Youmbi to successfully navigate established masquerade society rules and create exciting hybrid masks that blend popular cross-cultural icons with renowned genres of masquerade.

Notions of circulation run through Youmbi’s work. By traveling sculptural works that have been ritually enacted in “the field” into art galleries and museums—and making allowance for them to return afterward if their new owners desire—he creates relationships between institutions and communities of origin, challenges the permanence and function of art works in museums, and breaks the dichotomy between African “classical art” and “contemporary art.”