Michèle Magema, born in

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...

in 1977, is a Congolese-French video, performance, and photography artist. She was born in

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

in 1977. She emigrated to Paris, France in 1984, and currently resides in

Nevers Nevers ( , ; la, Noviodunum, later ''Nevirnum'' and ''Nebirnum'') is the prefecture of the Nièvre Departments of France, department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regions of France, region in central France. It was the principal city of the ...

Biography

In 2002 Michèle Magema received her MA in fine arts from l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Cergy. After her graduation, she travels to South Korea for a post diploma residency, followed by an Ifritry residency in Morocco. In addition to being a resident artist at the

Cité internationale des arts The Cité internationale des arts is an artist-in-residence building complex which accommodates artists of all specialities and nationalities in Paris. It comprises two sites, one located in the Marais and the other in Montmartre. Approximately ...

in Paris, she has participated in the Africa Remix Exhibition. Her work has been exhibited in the ''Global Feminisms'' exhibition at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, the Hirshoron Museum, and Sculpture Garden. With a background in plastic art Michèle Magema started her career as a painter. Then she followed experimenting with video, performance, photography and finally mixing video with drawing and text. Nowadays she is a multimedia interdisciplinary artist expressing herself mainly through video performance, where she overlaid different medias such as photography with drawing, drawing with video, photo on lace. The art of Michèle Magema has been influenced by many disciplines and artists: in literature and poetry by

Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fro ...

, Victor Hugo, Maya Angelou, Senghor, Edouard Glissant, Franz Fanon; in music by

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...

; from the experimental cinema she has been inspired by Antonioni, Fellini, Rossilini, Wim Wenders, Ingmar Bergman, as well as from women artists like Pipilitorist,

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

, Anna Mendieta, Eva Esse, Gina Pane, Renée Green. Michèle Magema artworks are at the intermediary mental zone between individual histories, history and art history. She tries to establish a permanent dialogue between her own stories and souvenirs with the collective memory of the spectators by approaching different themes such as feminism, sociology, politics, and mythology. The presence or the absence of the body is always at the center of her work. Michèle Magema earned several art awards and professional achievements among which the first prize of the Dakar Biennale 2004 and the Yango Biennale IFAA prize 2014. Some of her works are stored within private contemporary art collections including

Sindika Dokolo Sindika Dokolo (16 March 1972 – 29 October 2020) was a Congolese businessman and art collector. Since 2002 he had been married to Isabel dos Santos, the eldest daughter of José Eduardo dos Santos, then President of Angola. As of January 2020, ...

Collection in Luanda (Angola),

Tervuren Tervuren () is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, Belgium. The municipality comprises the villages of Duisburg, Tervuren, Vossem and Moorsel. On January 1, 2006, Tervuren had a total population of 20,636. The total a ...

Contemporary Collection (Belgium) and the Artothèque Villeurbanne (France). One of her most well-known works is ''Oyé Oyé'', (2004) a two‐channel video installation, in which a woman (Magema) is shown marching in place on the left, while on the right historic footage of Zaire's

Mobutu Sese Seko Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic o ...

overseeing parades of Congolese cultural pride.

References

Bibliography

* Africultures, Michèle Magema. http://www.africultures.com/php/?nav=personne&no=5261 * African digital art. The Video Artwork of Michèle Magema http://africandigitalart.com/2016/01/the-video-artwork-of-michele-magema/ * Signs journal (2005). Michèle Magema, Goodbye Rosa (2005). http://signsjournal.org/michele-magema-goodbye-rosa-2005-2005/ * Julie Crenn. Michele magema /// without echo, there is no meeting(2013). https://crennjulie.com/2013/01/11/michele-magema-without-echo-there-is-no-meeting-n-paradoxa-vol-31-2013/ * BrooklynMuseum (2010). Global Feminisms: Michele Magema. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3QHF_1GVv0 * Muller, Dena (Winter 2008). "Reviewed Works: Global Feminisms by Maura Reilly, Linda Nochlin; * Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art by Maura Reilly, Linda Nochlin". Signs. 33 (2): 471–474. doi:10.1086/521560. JSTOR 10.1086/521560. * Pensa, Iolanda (Ed.) 2017. Public Art in Africa. Art et transformations urbaines à Douala /// Art and Urban Transformations in Douala. Genève: Metis Presses.

Exhibitions

individual

*2015 : Michèle Magema CCF - 4 th Lubumbashi Biennal - Lubumbashi/ DRC *2014 : Interstices - Galerie Saro Léon/ Las Palmas- Gran Canaria *2011 : Michèle Magema The Triptych - Jean-Marc Patras Galerie / Paris- France

Collective

*Tramway Film Festival, Glasgow Slotland/United Kingdom *Opening Africa Museum, Permanent Collection Tervuren (vernissage, opening of the museum, Belgium) *Congo Stars, curated by Barbara Steiner- Kunsthaus Graz / Austria *I'm What I'm, curated by Julie Creen- IciGallery- Paris 11/ France * SUD (Salon Urbain de Douala), curated by Cécile Bourne- Farell- Doual’art Art Space, Douala / Camerun

Nordwind Festival

*YOUNG CONGO Nouvelle Génération d’Artistes Congolais- By Kin Arts Studio- Institut Français- Kinshasa/ DRC *AFIAC Des Artistes chez l’Habitant - FRONTIERES EFFRANGEES- FIAC/ FRANCE *SELLING THE SHODOWS to support the subsistence - curated by Ingrid La Fleur and Ayana V Jackson- Cgallery – Milan/ Italy *AFRIQUES CAPITALES curated by Simon Njami, Gare Saint-Sauveur, Lille / France *LUCY’S EYE curated by Orlando Britto, CAAM- Las Palmas/ Gran Canaria *SUD (Salon Urbain de Douala), curated by Cécile Bourne- Farell- Doual’art Art Space, Douala / Camerun *AN AGE FOR YOUR OWN MAKING curated by Bonaventure Soh Ndikung- Roskilde / Copenhagen/ Denmark *DAKAR BIENNAL « LA CITÉ DANS LE JOUR BLEU » curated by Simon Njami- Dakar / Senegal *4th LUBUMBASHI BIENNAL « Réalités Filantes », curated by Toma Muteba- Museum of Lubumbashi-Lubumbashi / DRC *L’AFRIQUE A DU GENIE, curated by Ghitha Triki- 3 th International African Development Forum, Attijariwafa Bank Foundation, Casablanca/ Morocco *SENTIMENTAL FINAL ACT, curated by Elise Atangana Revue Noire Gallery- Paris/ France *WHERE WE’ RE AT : OTHERS VOICES AND GENDER - Summer of Photography, curated by

Christine Eyene Christine Eyene (born Paris, 1970) is a Cameroonian art critic, art historian, and curator. Biography Born in 1970 in Paris, Christine Eyene studied the history of art at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University, also in Paris. She obtained a Diplôm ...

, Bozar Museum, Bruxelles/ Belgium *TOILES DE LUMIERES / collection Saro Leon, curated by Orlando Britto Casa Africa Las Palmas - Canary *Still Fighting Ignorance & Intellectual Perfidy Vidéo art from Africa curated by Kisito Assangni - Pori museum/ Finland *1st CASABLANCA BIENNAL – Casablanca/ Marocco *SUREEL CONGO Kinshasa la ville des images/ Art Museum of History and Cultur – Dortmund- Germany *Still Fighting Ignorance & Intellectual Perfidy Vidéo art from Africa curated by Kisito Assangni : ** Contemporary Art Center /Moscou- Russia ** Art Museum Torrance– Californie- USA **Lucca Museum - Italy **Gallery Arena 1 – Los Angeles - USA *COLOGNE OFF - Cologne International Video Art Festival, September, Cologne Germany *UN CERTAIN CERCLE DE REGARD Cité Internationale des Arts Gallery, Paris/France *ARCO MADRID 2010 with Arte Invisible, Madrid, Spain *A COLLECTIVE DIARY AN AFRICAN CONTEMPORARY JOURNEY, Janvier-Avril 2010, Contemporary Art Museum of Herzliya, Herzliya ISRAEL *PANAFRICAN FESTIVAL, curated by Nadira Laggoune, Alger, Algeria *PARADE & PROCESSION here comes everybody, Parasol Unit, London UK *16 th INTERNATIONAL ART VIDEO FESTIVAL OF CASABLANCA, Casablanca Morocco *NOTES FROM THE EMPIRE, Kunsthaus Dresden, Dresde Germany *THE MESSENGER 10/10- 23/11, Cultur Center BRGGE - Bruge BELGIUM *THE CINEMA EFFECT (Illusion Reality and the Moving Image) 19/06- 07/09, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington/ USA *DISTRITO LA REGENTA curated by Orlando Britto, La Regenta Las-Palmas/ Gran Canaria *ON PROCESSION, IMA Indiannapolis/ USA *FLOW, Studio Art Museum in Harlem, New York/ USA *SUD (Urban Salon of Douala), Space Doual’art, Douala / CAMERUN *7th BAMAKO AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHY BIENNALE curated by Simon Njami, Bamako / Mali *BLACK PARIS, Iwalewa-Haus, Bayreuth / Germany *AFRICA REMIX, curated by Simon Njami 24/06/07 - 18/08/O7 : ** National Art Gallery, Johannesburg / South Africa ** Moderna Museet, Stockholm / Sweden **Mori Museum, Tokyo / Japan **Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris / France **Hayward Gallery, London / UK **Kunst Palast Museum, Dusseldörf / Germany *9th HAVANA BIENNALE, entitled « Urban Dynamic Culture », Havana / Cuba *AFRICATTITUDES 04/02- 19/03, Michèle Magema & Cheikh Niass, Maison du Livre, de l'Image et du Son, Villeurbanne / France *5th BAMAKO AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHY BIENNALE / DIFFUSION PROJECT 27/04- 04/05, - Cultural Center of Teheran - Teheran / IRAN *BEAUTES AFRIQUES@NANTES, Le Lieu Unique, Nantes / France *LES AFRIQUES 31/03- 18/08, coproduction Tri Postale and Espace 251 Nord, Lille/ France *6th DAKAR BIENNALE, Dakar / SENEGAL - First Prize *5th BAMAKO AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHY BIENNALE, Bamako / MALI