We are happy to announce the new Thami Mnyele residency award winner Jean Katambayi Mukendi, who joined us on the 10th of February, and will stay in Amsterdam until the 7th of March. Jean Katambayi, as a member of On-Trade-Off collective, will work on producing new artworks for an upcoming exhibition Charging Myths at Framer Framed opening 23 February 19.00 hour.
It is the second time we work with the transnational artist collective On-Trade-Off and their long-term research project investigating the mining culture of Manono, the Democratic republic of the Congo (DCR). On-Trade-Off is initiated by Picha (Lubumbashi, DRC) and Enough Room for Space (Brussels, BE).
Jean Katambayi Mukendi is an artist and scientist who lives and works in Lubumbashi (DRC). He has also studied and is passionate about technology, mechanics, geometry and electricity, which form a foundation for his artistic approaches. He creates fragile and complex installations animated by sophisticated electrical mechanisms. His technological discoveries are part of a search for solutions to the social problems of current Congolese society. His main source of inspiration is the permanent questioning of our society, which seems dichotomous.
On-Trade-Off is an artist collective and experimental research project that works on the contemporary dimensions of a question as old, as mythical and as strategic as our relation to energy. Taking the recent run on lithium as a starting point, the project explores a broad range of questions surrounding raw materials for technological industries, financial speculation, and the history of electricity. Charging Myths brings together the extremes of the world-spanning value chains, and abusive mining economies, from its exploitative mining economies to the seductive surface of products. The exhibition is a co-production of Framer Framed and z33
The exhibition will also include works by our fellow George Senga, who is also a member of On-Trade-Off artist collective. In summer 2019 George Senga received the Thami Mnyele Foundation Award to work on an exhibition with Cargo in Context Amsterdam On-Trade-Off: The Weight of Wonders.