AUTHORS

11 artists and 3 theorists from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Belgium, Cameroon, Austria and Germany  created an artistic synergy in changing experimental contexts. This transdisciplinary cooperation is a dialogue between practice and theory, criticism and art.

Jean Kamba

Jean Kamba lives and works in Kinshasa and holds a degree in Information and Communication Sciences from the National Pedagogical University of Kinshasa (UPN) and the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences since 2012

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He works as a writer, poet, journalist, and art critic. He is a research assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa. He also organises independent exhibitions. In 2017, Jean Kamba was invited as an art critic by the Goethe Institut to the documenta in Kassel and Athens. He participated in an artistic residency around the collection of popular paintings of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren) in Brussels. In 2018, he took part in the collective exhibition “Congo stars” at the Kunsthaus Graz and the Kunsthalle Tübingen. He was also part of the team that produced a fanzine for the exhibition by German artist Wolfgang Tillmans at the Musée de l’Art Contemporain de l’Echangeur in Kinshasa. In 2019, Jean Kamba was a speaker in “Laboratoire Kontempo”, an experimental project of urban interventions in Kinshasa, initiated by the Mukenge/Schellhammer Duo, and was also a guest during the design symposium entitled “Spinning Triangles”, organised in Kinshasa by SAVVY Contemporary as part of the centenary of the Bauhaus school.

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Godelive Kasangati

Born in Goma in 1996, this artist currently lives in Kinshasa. She graduated (bac+3) in Plastic Arts, painting option, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa, where she will be completing her studies in the same field this year.

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Godelive discovered photography in 2016, followed by directing in 2018. Her participation in the “Megacities short docs” festival in 2018 accentuated her taste for directing and led her to direct her first short film entitled Mayibobo. Godelive has benefited from several workshops and exhibitions on photography and video-making and has exhibited her photographs at the 12? Rencontre de Bamako in 2019.

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Mukenge/Schellhammer

The Congolese/German duo Mukenge/Schellhammer (Christ Mukenge, born in Kinshasa, 1988; Lydia Schellhammer, born in Konstanz, 1992) leading this project are a guinea pig for post-postcolonial thinking and practice in today’s Kinshasa.

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In 2016, the duo founded the “Musée urbain” project in Kinshasa, currently under the title “Laboratoire Kontempo”, which has been held annually since then. Since 2016, the duo has been working with the transnational groups Gintersdorfer/Klaßen and LaFleur and have participated in projects such as “Dialogue Direct Kinshasa – Berlin” at HAU2 Berlin, “L’humiliation n’est pas la fin du monde” for the Skulptur Projekte in Münster and “Nana ou est-ce que tu connais le baras” at MC93, Paris. In 2019, the duo presented the exhibition “Komplexé” at the French Institute in Kinshasa, participated in the group exhibition “Freiheit – Grenzenlos frei” at the Noah Gallery in Augsburg and performed “Ton exotictisme est mon pain quotidien” at the Plateforme Contemporaine in Kinshasa. In 2020, the duo was invited to the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden for a cultural exchange, worked on the scenography for “Nana n’attrape pas la variole” at the Bremen Theatre and curated the exhibition “Images populaires” between Kinshasa and Erlangen.

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Sinzo Aanza

Sinzo Aanza (born 1990 in Goma, DR Congo) lives and works in Kinshasa, DR Congo. In 2020-2021, he is the artistic director of the second edition of the Yango Biennial held in Kinshasa.

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He has exhibited at WIELS in Brussels, at the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles – where he was nominated in 2018 for the Nouveau Prix Découverte, at the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, at the Biennale de Lubumbashi and at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris. In 2017, he was invited for a residency at WIELS in Brussels where he conceived the first part of Projet d’attentat contre l’image? In, in which he addressed the issue of Congolese religious syncretism. During his residency in 2019 at the Museum Rietberg, he carried out the second act of this trilogy of installations, in which he took a critical look at the legacy of ethnologist Hans Himmelheber and the collections he bequeathed to the museum. His first exhibition Pertinences citoyennes took place in the Imane Farès gallery in Paris in 2018.

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Sorana Munsya

Sorana Munsya is a curator, psychologist and psychotherapist of Congolese origin living in Brussels. She also has a Master’s degree in Development Cooperation from the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve.

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Sorana Munsya was assistant to the artistic director of the 5th Biennale d’art contemporain de Lubumbashi organised by the Picha art centre (founded, among others, by Sammy Baloji) and was part of the editorial team of the contemporary art magazine Afrikadaa. She was also a member of the eponymous collective with whom she organised the African Art Book Fair (Fiac, Art Basel) during the Dakar Biennale in 2018. During the 2016 Dakar Biennale, in collaboration with the IFAA ArtPlatform, she organised an artist residency as well as a series of performances and exhibitions in the Medina district of Dakar. In 2019, she engaged in a work of exchange and writing with the renowned contemporary artist Pascale Marthine Tayou for her solo exhibition “Tornado” at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Ostend (Mu.ZEE). In 2019, she also collaborated as a curator with the International Painting Meetings in Ouagadougou. She regularly writes texts for exhibition catalogues such as that of the Rencontres Photographiques de Bamako, the Congoville exhibition (Middleheim Museum) or for the catalogue of the exhibition “Young Congo” organised by the art centre Kin Artstudio, as well as for art magazines such as H ART. She has written exhibition texts for artists such as Dome Wood and Guy Wouete. Currently, she is collaborating with Vogue magazine to highlight African photography artists. Sorana Munsya is dedicated to counselling and accompanying African artists.

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Mega Mingiedi

Born in 1976, Mega Mingiedi Tunga is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa. He then continued his studies at the Haute école des Arts du Bas-Rhin, in a joint program with Strasbourg and Mulhouse.

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Co-founder of the Eza Possible collective, he has participated in numerous exhibitions and large-scale residencies in various countries, such as the Scénographies Urbaines in 2006, the Dakar Off Biennial in 2010, the Lubumbashi Biennial, etc. He has a rich twenty-years professional life, immersed between sculpture, performance, installations and graphic art.

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Sephora Mianda

Born in 1999 in Kinshasa, Sephora Mianda has obtained in 2016 a state diploma (baccalaureate) in the scientific section, biology option. She lives and works in Kinshasa.

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She is currently a member of the Bokutani Artistes Réunis collective, which she discovered through the artist Géraldine Tobe. She is interested in the field of photography and artistic installation and has participated in activities organised by her collective such as Talkin, organised at the Plateforme Contemporaine in 2018 in Kinshasa; a workshop on photography organised on the occasion of the solo exhibition of the artist Gosette Lubondo in 2020, at the Institut Français de Kinshasa; and the project “Entre Elles”, organised at Texaf Bilembo, in Kinshasa.

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Prisca Tankwey

Prisca Tankwey was born in 1997 in Kinshasa and evolves within the collective Laboratoir’Art. She graduated in 2019 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa in Plastic Arts. Currently, she is an assistant in charge of courses in the painting department in this same academic institution, while being professionally active.

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Since 2015, she started her career in the professional world. She has participated in various collective exhibitions and workshops, both at home and abroad. She is a multidisciplinary artist, painter, illustrator, photographer, installer, sculptor, etc. Prisca took part in the exhibition “Retours à l’Afrique” in 2020, in Bandjoun Station, Cameroon.

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Peter Miyalu

The artist Peter Miyalu lives and works in Kinshasa, where he was born in 2000. He is currently studying visual communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa, and at the same time participating in workshops and various professional activities related to cinema and photography.

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In 2019, he won the 1st prize in the FFE’s Film de Poche competition with his film “La danse du matin”. He also participated, in 2019, in the collective exhibition “Images en mouvement et créateurs en puissance” organised by the SADI collective, with his artistic video “Utopia” at the Centre Mont des Arts in Kinshasa.

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Landry Mbassi

Landry Mbassi is a curator and art critic. He has temporarily put his artistic practice (photography, video installation, documentary film) aside to devote himself fully to writing and curating.

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His curatorial research focuses on identity, memory, the question of aesthetics in contemporary art on the continent, urbanity, the relationship between art and the market, migratory movements, and the question of Black diasporas (among others). He has been the artistic director of RAVY (Rencontres d’Arts Visuels de Yaoundé) since 2018 and has been the general curator of the same event since 2014. He is also the Artistic Director of Douala Art Fair, the first ever contemporary art and design fair in Douala, whose first edition was held in June 2018, and he was then chosen to curate the first edition of the Ruinart Festiv’art in October 2019. The same year, he was the guest curator of the 8th edition of the RIAC (Rencontre internationale d’art contemporain) in Brazzaville. As an art critic, Landry has written for IAM – Intense Art Magazine, Afrikadaa, SWAG and was a visual arts columnist for Mosaïques, Cameroon’s arts and culture magazine. He lives between Yaoundé and elsewhere.

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Paulvi Ngimbi

Paulvi Ngimbi is a Congolese artist who lives and works in Kinshasa. Born in 1997, Paulvi is currently studying for a degree in plastic arts, with a focus on sculpture, at the Academy of Fine Arts in the same city.

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He is a founding member of Laboratoi’Art, a structure based in Kinshasa and focused on contemporary art practices. A multidisciplinary artist, sculptor, photographer, painter, performer and installer, he has participated in various group exhibitions and workshops, including “Focus: Inter-influence”, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa, organised by the SADI collective in 2019, and also “Images en mouvement et créateurs en puissance” in Kinshasa, organised by the SADI collective with his artistic video “Resistance” at the Centre Mont des Arts in Kinshasa.

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Harmonie Eley

Currently a student in Classical Music at the National Institute of Arts (INA), Harmonie lives and works in Kinshasa, the city where she was born, in 1996.

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She works in various artistic disciplines including: dance, slam, cinema, music, make-up and special effects. She graduated with a state diploma (baccalaureate) in 2016, with a literary option. She was part of the professional dancers group Artcon crew from 2017 until February 2020. With Etambaola Agency she works on slam. In 2019, at the Kinshasa festival of performers, KinAct, she led a workshop on dance, with children, and she made her debut in the field of performance.

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Elisabeth Tambwe

Born in Kinshasa (DRC), Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe grew up in France and studied art there. In 1998, she obtained a National Diploma of Plastic Expression, for her work in sculpture, at the School of Fine Arts in Tourcoing, France.

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Her plastic universe, strongly influenced by questions about the body and identity, combined with her training as a contemporary dancer and her practice of traditional Guinean, Senegalese and Afro-Cuban dance, led her to found the Dixit Company in 2005, a research laboratory for contemporary creation where dance, plastic arts and sound creations meet. “Mon cœur balance, solo”, in which the choreographer directs herself, was created the same year. Today, she lives and works in Austria.

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