Homme & Mwasi Tshombo
[Cellphone Man & Woman]
2019 – [ongoing]
Various performances. Costumes made from mobile phone debris.
[Cellphone Man & Woman]
2019 – [ongoing]
Various performances. Costumes made from mobile phone debris.
The D. R. Congo is the coltan-richest country of the planet. Coltan is necessary for the production of electronic gadgets like mobile phones. It has also caused one of the most ruthless wars in human history. Six million people died in the north-eastern part of the D. R. Congo between 1996 and 2016 alone, with numbers still rising due to an ever growing demand and worsening conditions. At the same time much of the world’s electronic waste is exported back to Africa and other continents.
“Homme Tshombo” and “Mwasi Tshombo” bring these issues to the street, into the public sphere, employing performance strategies that crossover ritual practices of consciousness-raising and rebalancing with social inequalities and moderinity’s violence, so called traditional symbolism with contemporary materiality.
As global communication tools, mobile phones also symbolize the possibility or impossibility of connecting: Between the living but also between the living and the dead.
Working with discarded cell phones is part of a larger practice by Nada Tshibwabwa, which consists in using waste, that he finds during long walks in the streets of Kinshasa, or by visiting places, where debris is left en masse, as raw material for his artworks.
“Homme Tshombo” and “Mwasi Tshombo” bring these issues to the street, into the public sphere, employing performance strategies that crossover ritual practices of consciousness-raising and rebalancing with social inequalities and moderinity’s violence, so called traditional symbolism with contemporary materiality.
As global communication tools, mobile phones also symbolize the possibility or impossibility of connecting: Between the living but also between the living and the dead.
Working with discarded cell phones is part of a larger practice by Nada Tshibwabwa, which consists in using waste, that he finds during long walks in the streets of Kinshasa, or by visiting places, where debris is left en masse, as raw material for his artworks.