The Color of Perception
Artist Jean Katambayi Mukendi's collage's of electronic waste and his hope for a brighter future
Portrait of artist Jean Katambayi MukendiOriginal Source: Design Indaba
Who is Jean Katambayi Mukendi?
Jean Katambayi Mukendi is an artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He lives and works in the city of Lumbashi. In Katambayi’s visual work, memory, technology, logic, personal history and science come together.
Visa Afrolampe Schengen (1 to 9) (2018) by Jean Katambayi MukendiDesign Indaba
Drawings and diaries
Jean's sculptures are based on working drawings, with technical and associative links. They form the diaries of the sculptures and will probably last longer than the objects they detail. References to mathematics and electricity are a common thread throughout his notes.
Dark Filament (2021) by Jean Katambayi MukendiDesign Indaba
Practicing perception
In his work Dark Filament, Jean uses color as a metaphor for how we might extend our minds and change our perception. The work is made up of a diagramatic drawing filled with a collage of electronic waste.
In the artist's words
''My drawings tend to be in black and white. If I could find a color that represented perception, I would paint it onto my work. Colors are the markers of the visible world, they are the limits of our perceptions. My collage is made up of darkened filaments, of powerlessness. If we are to develop as a nation, we need to expand our perceptions. We need a new color.''
Unpacking difficult truths
Dark Filament uses the image of a lightbulb filled with burnt out waste as a way in which to shine light on the daily struggles of people in the DRC despite the country's rich natural resources.
''I want to show how our people in DRC still struggle, even though our land is rich in minerals. We mine copper, cobalt and now lithium to power batteries.
Other people’s batteries.''
Disparate lives
'I grew up in a mining town and the contrast between life here and the life we enable elsewhere in the world has always struck me as strange.''
Imagining a new color and a new way of being
''My collage is made up of darkened filaments, of powerlessness. If we are to develop as a nation, we need to expand our perceptions. We need a new color.''
A poem for the times
Electricity by Jean Katambayi Mukendi
We have chosen to live with water, with electricity, with school, with classical political regimes, with town planning... but we do not know how to maintain them.
We are escaping the challenge of globalization, which allows the exchange of knowledge...
While the human resource exists, the technology exists, the earth and the sun exist... What is this imaginary ingredient that is lacking to align consciousness and mentality?How to get out of this dichotomy, which puts well-being in conflict with well-doing. It is not clear when
