A few words about your artistic career
Associate artist at Studios Kabako, collaborating on several projects. I recently worked with Faustin Linyekula on the soundtrack and video for his performance "My Body, my Archives" at the Tate Modern Museum, and on the music and video for Entre-Deux: Testament by Dorine Mokha, with whom I co-direct the Art'gument project.
How long have you been an artist?
From my first professional contract, it was 13 years. But I've been rapping for over 20 years.
Why did you apply for this scholarship? How will the scholarship support you?
Because I needed the financial means to make this creation a reality, which I started thinking about in the middle of this crisis. This grant will mainly help pay for a few fees and per diems during the residency.
What are your concrete artistic objectives after this residency?
Producing this work opens up a space for sharing with the other guest artists;
Find space for it to be broadcast so that it can be seen and heard by a wide audience.
What did you achieve during this creative residency? What is the result (work created)? Who was involved in the creative process?
We were able to do some additional filming to enhance what we had from the start: a few recordings. Then we did all the post-production work.
At this stage, we're happy with the work we've produced, which conveys what we wanted to say and how we feel about it.
As well as myself, this process involved a writer from Lubumbashi who revisited some of the texts (Dorine Mokha); a team of 3 young people in training at Studios Kabako/Kisangani, including an assistant director (Chimène Baofa), a cameraman (Antoine Mawazo) and an editor (Dorcas Mulamba); Jeef Mongema, Nipcian Nkolobise and Gaylor Mosi, who lived through the experience with me and who share their stories in the video.
How do you think these activities help us to think about the world today, in relation to the COVID-19 crisis, and/or about building for the future?
Already, the fact that we are in the business of telling stories or bearing witness to things we have experienced provides a basis for reflection on the vision we might have of the world in general. By bringing people together to develop work, the creative space inevitably becomes a framework for a new way of talking about how we project ourselves into the future every day.
How did you feel during the residency? And afterwards?
This residency was a time for questioning what I really wanted to share through this work. Because there were moments of doubt about the choice (declaration of love) in the light of other revelations that I discovered in discussions with the characters. There was this strong desire to react quite violently. But in the end I got over it, we stuck to the original intention.
Our work is not necessarily what we had imagined. But we're happy with it, we're very happy with what we've ended up with.
We've had a lot more power cuts than before, and we were hit by malaria for a while.
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Home Sweet Home
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