Sammy Baloji

Sammy Baloji (born 1978) is a photographer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He works in Lubumbashi and Brussels, and held exhibitions in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Bilbao, Cape Town and Bamako.^[1][2]

Baloji was born in Lubumbashi on December 29, 1978. He graduated in literature and human science at the University of Lubumbashi.^[3][4]

After his study he first began to work as a cartoonist. He later specialized in video art and photography. He made much of his work in his own province of Katanga. Recurrent in his work are ethnographic exploitation, architecture and urbanism, such as the exploitation of man and environment in the Congolese urban landscape.^[3]

When the artist was younger, he and his family were in the midst of the growing poverty that followed the ending control of Belgium over the Katanga province. His father, Célestin Baloji, lost both his job and house as a result to this. During a day in 1998, when Baloji was leaving school, he was given a camera by his brother-in-law. He was later given a Canon camera from his aunt in 2003. After obtaining his first camera, Baloji had trained under photographer, Simon Mukundayi.^[5]

The artist also cofounded the biennale at Lubumbashi with Gulda el Magambo Bin Ali in 2008, with the intention of art being more accessible within the area, as there were little resources for it at the time.^[6]

Baloji is commonly known for his photographic works, which usually pertains to Lubumbashi's 20th century history, including Mémoire, The Album, and his Kolwezi series.^[7][8][9]

La temática de la mayoría de las obras de Baloji se relaciona con la historia de la colonización de Lubumbashi , inicialmente bajo dominio belga.  Esto incluye el período en que el rey belga Leopoldo II controlaba a la población congoleña de la provincia, la cual posteriormente pasó a manos de la Union Minière du Haut-Katanga . Esta unión comenzó a someter a la población congoleña a trabajos mineros forzados en 1911. La región de Lubumbashi era rica en materiales valiosos, siendo el cobre el mineral más abundante, como se puede apreciar en las esculturas de Baloji . ^{[ 7 ]}

El Ensayo fotográfico sobre planificación urbana también fue una colección de fotografías creadas por el propio artista. La serie contenía doce imágenes dispuestas en una cuadrícula, la mitad de las cuales eran imágenes aéreas de Lubumbashi y las otras seis estaban llenas de moscas y mosquitos .  Esto hacía referencia a la división forzada del pueblo congoleño por parte de los colonizadores belgas, bajo el pretexto de separar a la población de los insectos portadores de malaria . ^{[ 10 ]}

Baloji también tiene obras en escultura.  Las dos esculturas de cobre, Sociétés Secrètes y The Other Memorial, eran piezas similares que representaban la textura de la escarificación , en referencia a la cultura del artista. Sociétés Secrètes contenía ocho bajorrelieves , cada uno único debido a los diferentes patrones de escarificación. The Other Memorial tiene forma de cúpula y también contiene patrones de escarificación, pero su significado histórico en este caso refleja ciertos sucesos ocurridos durante la Primera Guerra Mundial . ^{[ 10 ]} 

Baloji y David Nadeau-Bernatchez codirigieron el documental de 2020 Rumba Rules, New Genealogies (Rumba Rules, nouvelles généalogies) , sobre la escena musical de Kinshasa. ^{[ 11 ]}

Mémoire es una serie de imágenes compuestas por el propio Baloji, que narra los acontecimientos históricos de Lubumbashi durante su colonización en el siglo XX. El artista utiliza fotografías de archivo en blanco y negro del pueblo congoleño y las recorta sobre un fondo contemporáneo a color que muestra las minas en las que se vieron obligados a trabajar.  Baloji realiza estas composiciones y ediciones en Photoshop .  Varias imágenes de la serie retratan la vulnerabilidad y la inquietud de las figuras representadas en cada una de las fotografías. ^{[ 7 ]}

The series was also done in a video adaption format, for Baloji's first use in time-based media. This over fourteen-minute video still follows the lines of the original photo series’ meaning, but is now presented by the dancing performance of Congolese choreographer, Faustin Linyekula.^[12]

Source:^[13]

Solo shows

• 2009 Katanga – Schatten der Vergangenheit – Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt/Main
• 2010 Mémoire – Goethe-Institut Nairobi, Nairobi Mémoire by Sammy Baloji – CGP London – Cafe Gallery Projects, London
• 2018 A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes – Framer Framed – Amsterdam – The Netherlands

Group shows

• 2007 TRANS CAPE – contemporary African art on the move – Trans Cape Africa, Cape Town
• 2007 Congo Contemporain – Monos Gallery, Liège
• 2008 The Messenger – Cultuurcentrum Brugge, Bruges
• 2008 Spot on...- ifa-Galerie Berlin, Berlin
• 2008 InVideo: Lands And Skies – Spazio Oberdan, Milan
• 2009 Spot On... Bamako – Vii. Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie – ifa-Galerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart
• 2009 Périfériks – CAN – Centre d'Art Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel
• 2010 Muestra Annual Xxiii Mam ChiloÉ – MAM – Museo de Arte Moderno Chiloé, Castro
• 2010 Prix Pictet / Earth – Gallery of Photography, Dublin
• 2011 Possible Cities: Africa In Photography and Video – Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery (CFG) – Haverford College, Haverford, PA
• 2011 ARS 11 – Kiasma – Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki
• 2011 Meeting Points 6 – Locus Agonistes: Practices and Logics of the Civic – Beirut Art Center, Beirut
• 2011 Artists in Residence. Sammy Baloji & Patrick Mudekereza – Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren
• 2011 Present Tense – Gulbenkian. Próximo Futuro, Lisbon
• 2011 Project 35 – Gertrude contemporary art spaces, Melbourne, VIC
• 2011 Level 2 Gallery: Contested Terrains – Tate Modern, London
• 2011 Infinite Balance: Artists and the Environment – The Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA
• 2012 The Beautiful Time – Museum of African Art in the Natural History Museum – New York City^[14]
• 2012 Environment and Object – Recent African Art – Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT
• 2012 Project 35 – Kunsthaus CentrePasquArt – Centre d'Art, Biel/Bienne
• 2012 All That Fits: The Aesthetics of Journalism – QUAD Gallery, Derby
• 2012 Status 24 – Dokumente Von Heute – Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur
• 2012 Le surréel Congo – Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Dortmund, Dortmund
• 2012 Newtopia – Cultuurcentrum Mechelen, Mechelen
• 2013 No Limit 2, Une Œuvre / Un Artiste – Galerie Imane Farès, Paris
• 2013 Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa – National Museum of African Art – Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
• 2013 Witness/Témoin – Espace doual´art, Douala
• 2013 La Otra Bienal De Arte 2013 – La Otra Bienal, Bogota
• 2013 Conversation Piece – Mu.ZEE, Oostende
• 2014 Die Göttliche Komödie. Himmel, Hölle, Fegefeuer aus Sicht afrikanischer Gegenwartskünstler, The Divine Comedy. Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists – Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt/Main
• 2014 Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa – Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
• 2014 Present Tense – Centro de Arte Moderna – CAM – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
• 2020 Radical Revisionists: Contemporary African Artists Confronting Past and Present, Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, Texas^[15]

In 2007 Baloji was twice awarded at the African Photography Encounters in Bamako, Mali, with the Prize Africa in Creation (Prix Afrique en Creation) and the Prize for the Image (Prix pour l’image).^[16] In 2009 he was honored with a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands, for "his highly original inscription of the painful history of human and environmental exploitation into the present-day landscape, for bringing Congo's current realities to an international platform, for his important contribution to the memory of the Congo providing a new reading of the present, and for his challenging demonstration that development can only be realized after duly taking into account the traumas of the past."^[17]

He received two Prix Iris nominations for Rumba Rules, New Genealogies at the 24th Quebec Cinema Awards in 2022, for Best Documentary Film and Best Cinematography in a Documentary.^[18]