# Sammy Baloji ## expand\_more ## Robert Gardner Photography Fellow 2017 Sammy Baloji (1978– ) was born and raised in Lubumbashi, in the contested and mineralrich Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, formerly the Belgian Congo and Zaire). Sammy’s work juxtaposes architecture, industrial ruins, and vast slag heaps with images of the people—workers, villagers, urbanites—to explore identity, social history, and memory. According to Fariba Derakhshani of the Prince Clause Fund, Baloji’s “… work is unusual and outstanding for its profound engagement with his people, their history, and their humanity. This personal involvement is perfectly balanced and contained by his sensitive eye and his commitment to critical intellectual enquiry.” ![A photo of four men in uniform in black and white is collaged into a modern image of a worn-down mine in a desert landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/peabody/files/untitled_21_2006.jpg?itok=MFygQMbs) *From the series "Memory," Untitled 21, 2006. ©Sammy Baloji.* ![A black and white photo of four workers only wearing bottom dress and standing in front of wooden pallets is collaged on top of a modern photo of a run-down mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/peabody/files/untitled_11_2006.jpg?itok=AYxi0874) *From the series "Memory," Untitled 11, 2006. ©Sammy Baloji.*Baloji’s Mémoire \[Memory\] (2004–06) comprised a series of highly charged photomontages that juxtaposed archival images of workers with subtly colored panoramas of today’s mining wasteland, challenging historical dogmas on colonization in Katanga Province. Kolwezi (2009–11) explored the impact of the ongoing post-colonial exploitation of the mineral resources of the DRC. Essay on Urban Planning, (2013) exhibited at the Venice Biennial (2015), is a stunning depiction of the human condition in its modern iterations, concerns extended in the exhibition Urban Now: City Life in Congo (2016)—currently at the Open Society Foundations in New York City. Urban Now, a collaboration with anthropologist Filip De Boeck, explores the city of Kinshasa, in the DRC “suspended between the broken dreams of a colonial past and the promises of neoliberal futures.” ![A stands further back in the picture, backlit by the sun in a cloudy sky. The tower is missing walls on most floors, and is surrounded by mostly one story buildings.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/peabody/files/sb_the_tower.jpg?itok=AWp1G4w_) *From Urban Now: The Tower, 7th street, quartier industrial, municipality of Limete, 2015. © Sammy Baloji.* ![Chief and head of the Mbuku Mvemba Mavubu clan sits on a chair in a sparse grassy plain. He wears clan dress, cloaked in red with gold accents.](/sites/g/files/omnuum4921/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/peabody/files/sb_david_ebalavo_chief.jpg?itok=5tIDcpu2) *David Ebalavo, Humbu land chief and head of the Mbuku Mvemba Mavubu clan sits on a chair, Mont Amba District, Kinshasa, 2015. © Sammy Baloji.* For his Fellowship year, Sammy will focus on the Gendarmes Katangais, a rebel resistance group from the copper-rich Katanga province of DRC. The Katangese Gendarmes have influenced political landscapes in Central Africa since the Cold War and are likely to continue to do so. Defeated in their battle for the succession of Katanga from Congo/Zaire during the 1960s, the Katangese Gendarmes based themselves in neighboring Angola among communities that shared their mostly Lunda ethnicity. In precolonial times, a Lunda kingdom had ruled this cross-border region. The Katangese Gendarmes mobilized Lunda unity during the 1970s and, aided by Angolan forces, staged two insurgent wars against Zaire, ruled by President Mobutu. Mobutu, claiming the rebels were backed by Cuba and the USSR, enlisted aid from the US, France, and China, and defeated the rebels. During the 1990s, the Katangese Gendarmes joined Laurent Kabila’s successful overthrow of Mobutu, but many became disillusioned with Kabila’s rule and eventually returned to Angola, where today they struggle to maintain their identity and still dream of a return "home” to Katanga. In this new project Sammy will continue his collaboration with anthropologist and Lunda expert, Filip De Boeck, and his use of archival resources in his photographic processes. Sammy Baloji lives and works in Lubumbashi, DRC and Brussels, Belgium. Baloji has had solo exhibitions at: Musée du quai Branly, Paris; MuZee, Oostende, Belgium; Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren; and Museum for African Art, New York. His solo show that opened in May at WIELS, Contemporary Art Center Brussels titled Sammy Baloji & Filip De Boeck — Urban Now: City Life in Congo, is currently showing at the Open Society Foundation, New York. Widely collected, Baloji has been featured in numerous group exhibitions worldwide. Currently Sammy Baloji is featured in documenta 14, Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece, directed by Adam Szymczyk, and curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. He is also in Chinafrika: under construction, at Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, Germany, Tous, des sangs-mélês curated by Frank Lamy and Julie Crenn, MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, France. Senses of Time: Video and Film-Based Works of Africa, curated by Karen Milbourne and Margaret Nooter-Roberts is currently at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C., having already shown at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA, and the Wellin Museum, New York in 2016. In 2016 his work was also featured in the 11th Shanghai Biennale, and he curated in collaboration with Bambi Ceuppens, Congo Art Works: Popular Painting at BOZAR, Brussels, currently showing at The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia. In 2015, he was featured in “la vie modern” curated by Ralph Rugoff, in the 13th Biennale de Lyon, “All the World’s Future’s” curated by Okwui Enwezor, the 56th International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, and “Personne et les autres”, curated by Katrina Gregos, the exhibition for the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He was also featured in “Africa” at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, “Beauté Congo”, Foundation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, and “Tech4Change”, curated by Mari F. Sundet, at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway, 2015. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including, the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, 2015, and the 2014 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative award, partnering with Olafur Eliasson. He was a Prix Pictet finalist in 2009, received the Prince Claus Award in 2008, and two awards at the 2007 African Photography Biennial in Bamako, Mali. Sammy is represented in the United States by Axis Gallery, New York. See more of Sammy Baloji's work on the [Axis Gallery website](https://axis.gallery/artists/sammybaloji/).