“In the name of daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,
I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder
as an architect of peace.
In the name of the sun and its minors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons of the firefly
and the apple, I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.”
- Diane Ackerman
I recited the poem above to myself a few days before the year 2020 ended, as I registered myself as a professional artist. As far as I can remember, I’ve always been fascinated by the infinity of the sky and the abysses. My work as an artist and educator stems from the ‘in-between’ of my ways of relating to myself and other forms of life : spirituality and science. Born from two immigrant parents from D.R Congo, I’ve been raised between my father’s desire to feed my natural curiosity by making me read books about geography, astronomy, geology or even medecine... and my mother’s desire to pass down to me her animist heritage by inviting me to see trees, wind, the ocean and other life forms has inhabited by a spirit equal as mine.
As a child, I’ve been learning the name of clouds and flowers, wondering why I could stargaze with my mother in the coutryside and not from my window in the south outskirts of Paris or looking for something - not yet known at the time - in an astrophysics laboratory during a short internship as a teenager. Now as an artist, I explore the idea that science is not the way, but a way of relating to the world among others that have been historically silenced. In a time that challenges our ways of existing on Earth, I ask myself the same question that artist Orfeo Tagiuri in one of his little passing thoughts : “If science is our current model, how has it shaped the way we interact with the world ?”
︎︎︎
NEWS
14.08.2024 - 26.08.2024
Air Index (collective installation)
Equivalentbehaviour, London, UK
14.09.2024 - 13.10.2024
(Im)possible worlds (group exhibition)
Biennale Photo de Mulhouse
La KunsTURM, Tour de l'Europe (14ème étage), Mulhouse, FR
As a child, I’ve been learning the name of clouds and flowers, wondering why I could stargaze with my mother in the coutryside and not from my window in the south outskirts of Paris or looking for something - not yet known at the time - in an astrophysics laboratory during a short internship as a teenager. Now as an artist, I explore the idea that science is not the way, but a way of relating to the world among others that have been historically silenced. In a time that challenges our ways of existing on Earth, I ask myself the same question that artist Orfeo Tagiuri in one of his little passing thoughts : “If science is our current model, how has it shaped the way we interact with the world ?”
︎︎︎
NEWS
14.08.2024 - 26.08.2024
Air Index (collective installation)
Equivalentbehaviour, London, UK
14.09.2024 - 13.10.2024
(Im)possible worlds (group exhibition)
Biennale Photo de Mulhouse
La KunsTURM, Tour de l'Europe (14ème étage), Mulhouse, FR