My practice as an artist and researcher unfolds at the dynamic intersection of environment, culture, and social transformation, where these elements deeply influence one another. Operating from the Congo DR, I am fully immersed in a complex context characterized by extraordinary ecological wealth that exists side by side with fragility, exploitation, and ongoing conflict. It is from this powerful tension that my artistic voice emerges—one that approaches art not merely as decoration or ornamentation but as a vital tool for inquiry, negotiation, and at times, acts of resistance and resilience in the face of adversity.
The core of my work lies in asking questions rather than providing fixed answers. Some of these questions are urgent and personal such as:
- How can contemporary art move beyond representing ecological crises to actively reshape the ways we imagine our relationship with the natural world?
- What strategies allow artists to collaborate with communities, institutions, and movements without reducing lived realities into consumable aesthetics?
- How can voices rooted in African experience – especially Central Africa – take part in reconfiguring the global conversations on ecology, identity, memory and transformation?
These questions do not remain in theory. They shape the projects I create: illustrations that narrate biodiversity, films that wrestle with cultural memory, and collaborative initiatives with youth and local communities. Each of these works seeks to hold together the poetic and the politic, the intimate and the collective, the local and the global.
For me, the studio is not bounded by walls. It extends into the forest, the street, the community meeting, the archive, and sometimes into the silences of absence and memory. Art becomes a method – a way to think and a way to relate. It allows me to weave knowledge across anthropology, ecology, and storytelling while grounding it in the lived realities of my environment.
In this sense, art represents a profound form of responsibility. It insists not only on visibility but also on fostering meaningful dialogue and opening up the possibility of imagining and creating alternative futures. Art serves as a powerful reminder that imagination should never be mistaken for mere escapism; instead, it functions as a vital terrain of struggle, a crucial resource for survival, and a potent catalyst for transformation and change in society.
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