Kin Graff, the international graffiti festival in the DRC, is making a comeback
Audio 01:18
(Illustration) Congolese artist Chris Shongo paints on the exterior wall of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa on June 18, 2020. AFP - SAMIR TOUNSI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
The 5th edition of the festival lasts from May 27 to June 5 in Kinshasa.
Led by the ASBL Culture +, this event combines creativity and civic engagement in the working-class neighborhoods of the capital.
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With our correspondent in Kinshasa,
Patient Ligodi
Two spray paint cans in hand, Tata Nizzoo Kobo adjusts his ladder hanging on the wall.
For the very first mural of this edition of Kin Graff, the subject chosen aims to challenge:
“The theme is Batela lobi Nayo.
It's in Lingala.
In French, this means protecting your future.
There will be different lettering and different illustrations that will make up the fresco to try
to convey a message
aimed at young people.
»
Even the choice of the building is no coincidence: the Mongita room, headquarters of the National Congolese Theater Company, an old building steeped in history now abandoned.
“
The national theater was important for us,
testifies Yann Kwete, initiator of the Kin Graff festival,
it is a way of rehabilitating a space which is forgotten by the State, abandoned by the Ministry of Culture.
We thought we'd put some life into this institution, which has brought out a lot of artists.
»
Frédéric Ngandu, director general of the National Congolese Theater Company, hopes that the fresco developed by the young graffiti artists will draw the attention of the State to the fate of this building: "
We had here, every Thursday, a production theater and every Friday a ballet production.
We stopped because of how old this place was.
We cannot continue to receive the public under these conditions.
»
The artists participating in this 5th edition of Kin Graff will also try to give more color and life to other buildings in the city of Kinshasa.
“There is a real political commitment in graffiti in the DRC”
With 34 years of experience, Dema, a famous Belgian graffiti artist and calligrapher, is the sponsor of the festival this year.
He came to the Congolese capital to share with young artists from Kinshasa for the second time and is particularly touched by
the themes exploited by Congolese artists.
There is a real political commitment in graffiti in the DRC, that's the big difference with us.
In Brussels, sometimes they do graffiti to do visual, beautiful graffiti, without having a background behind it.
Which is not my policy at all.
Afterwards, there is all the vandalism in Europe that there is not here.
Here, it is really an approach of societal commitment, of emancipation of youth, and which allows each artist to be a promoter of a strong message.
It expresses positions such as the abandonment of certain buildings of life or the transmission of infectious diseases.
Congolese artists evoke big themes and put them on a wall and say 'here we are, young people, we are involved in the global politics of the city, we are not going to interfere in political politics because that does not interest us not,
but in everyday politics we get involved and we try to send a strong message.
And that's the goal of graffiti, especially in Africa, less in Europe because in Europe, it's something else.
»
Dema, famous graffiti artist and sponsor of this edition of the festival
Patient Ligodi
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