Performance Art in Congo

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.