LUIS DEVIN
Biographical Notes
| |
Ethnomusicologist and composer, Mauro Luis Devin Campagnoli studied cultural anthropology at the University of Torino (Italy), graduating with a thesis on the Baka Pygmies of Cameroon. He then earned a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology, with a thesis on Baka musical instruments. He also got two diplomas in Composition and Choral Music & Choir Conducting at the "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatory of Music, Turin.
He has been conducting anthropological and ethnomusicological fieldwork in Central Africa since 1998, first as a member of the Italian Ethnological Mission in Equatorial Africa and later as a part of his Ph.D., studying in particular the music and rituals of the Baka and other pygmy groups (Bakola, Bedzan, Bakoya, Aka, etc.). During an expedition in the rainforest of Cameroon, he took part into the male initiation rite that marks the transition to adulthood of the young Baka boys, a secret rite conducted by the Spirit of the Forest and by elderly members of the group. After a week of rituals he was accepted in a Baka patrilinear clan.
Besides the ethnological research, he occasionally contributes to newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, TV/media productions and museums, with articles and photo-reportages on anthropological subjects, or by providing ethnographic material and advice about African Pygmies.
He is co-founder and president of the Likano Association (Onlus), a non-profit insitution for the study and protection of biocultural diversity. The organization, constituted to promote pure and applied research in areas such as cultural anthropology, natural sciences and ecology, works in particular in Central Africa and Madagascar.
For further information: www.luisdevin.com.
To contact Luis Devin, please use the email address on the Contact page. |
* In the photo: Luis Devin with a Baka Pygmy arched harp, in a rainforest camp (Cameroon).
** The page background is inspired by abstract patterns painted on bark clothes by Mbuti women, in the Ituri rainforest (Mbuti Pygmies of the Northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo). The decorations of the barks, which may refer to the reality of rainforest environments and Pygmy camps without offering a direct representation of them, are carried out with various natural pigments, using flexible sticks, liana cords, small stamps, or simply the fingertips dipped into the color.
