Talk with Sammy Baloji and Filip de Boeck

Sammy Baloji and Filip De Boeck will discuss their book Suturing the City: Living Together in Congo’s Urban Worlds (2016) and their exhibition Urban Now: City Life in Congo, which will be on view in Lisbon from the end of March (Galeria Av. da Índia).

Chair: Ana Balona de Oliveira

Organization:
Ana Balona de Oliveira, Thinking from the South: Comparing Post-Colonial Histories and Diasporic Identities through Artistic Practices and Spaces, Transnational Perspectives on Contemporary Art: Identities and Representation, CASt-IHA-FCSH-NOVA and Visual Culture, Migration, Globalization and Decolonization, CITCOM-CEC-FLUL

Mónica de Miranda, Post-Archive: Politics of Memory, Place and Identity, CITCOM-CEC-FLUL

Sammy Baloji (b. 1978 Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo) is a visual artist based in Brussels and Lubumbashi. He is the co-founder of the Lubumbashi Biennial organized by Picha Asbl. Internationally renowned, Baloji’s work has been exhibited in prestigious venues such as the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; Muzee, Ostend; the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren; Museum for African Art, New York; WIELS, Brussels; the Venice Art Biennial, Venice; and Documenta 2017, Kassel and Athens. Recent book publications include Mémoire/Kolwezi (2014), Hunting and Collecting (2016), and Suturing the City: Living Together in Congo’s Urban Worlds (2016, with Filip De Boeck).

Filip De Boeck (b. 1961, Antwerp, Belgium) is Professor of Anthropology at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Africa (IARA) at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. His book publications include Kinshasa: Tales of the Invisible City (2004, with photographer Marie-Françoise Plissart), and most recently Suturing the City: Living Together in Congo’s Urban Worlds (2016, with Sammy Baloji). De Boeck also directed Cemetery State (2010), a documentary about a Kinshasa graveyard, and produced several exhibitions. His exhibition Kinshasa: Imaginary City (2014), co-curated with Koen Van Synghel for the Belgian Pavillion at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennial, was awarded a Golden Lion.

In 2016, De Boeck and Baloji presented the exhibition Urban Now: City Life in Congo at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, in collaboration with the Open Society (New York) and The Power Plant (Toronto). On March 23 2018, the exhibition will open at Galeria Av. da Índia/EGEAC (Lisbon).

©​Dieter Telemans