
Congo.
“System K” is a showcase and exploration of Kinshasa’s gritty street art scene, where a ragtag team of young artists is transforming the landscape of the slums into a vibrant canvas. Because the more traditional art materials are expensive and hard to get, they rely on found objects, which are then arranged through inventive techniques into sculptures, paintings, instruments, costumes. Some become part of performances conducted amidst the crowds, with many of the practices a danger to the artists’ wellbeing and freedom. From a much-hyped collective of instrument inventors playing hybrid music and a sculptor who has managed to achieve international fame to a molten-plastic artist who sleeps rough behind the local Arts Academy and costumed performers who lurk through the neighborhood delivering scathing acts against the politics of the Congolese government—the creators profiled in “System K” are at the cutting edge of the world’s art scene, and it’s time you got to know them.
Artist and Performance Art Groups
- Artists
- Groups
- UNRESEARCHED
- Bonaza Bolamba
- Eddy Ekete
- Collectif FARATA
- Eléonore Hellio
- Shaka Fumu Kabaka
- Julie Djikey Kim
- Toto Kisaku
- Faustin Linyekula
- Tresor Malaya
- Falonne Mambu
- Maurice Mbikayi
- Ndaku Ya la vie est belle,
- Junior Nobiko
- Flory Sinanduku
Information, resources, and more
- the Artist in Danger association
- KinAct, a week-long arts festival
- They call us bewitched’: the DRC performers turning trash into art
- These artists transform garbage into garb to take a stand
- DR Congo’s Urban Art Scene Is Pulsating with Politics and Perils—‘System K’, dir. Renaud Barret, 2019
- Diamonds in the rough: Congo’s art scene – video
- EU4Art – Experimental Video and Collective Art Practice in Congo
- Diamonds in the rough: Congo’s art scene – video
- Why DRC’s art is worth fighting for
- DR Congo: rubbish bins inspire Kinshasa performers
- Moonshine explore Congolese tradition in Zaïre Space Program