Melisa Kayowa
Melisa Kayowa
Melisa Kayowa is interested in the family as a social unit and its stability/fragility. She examines traditions and cultural practices in terms of their topicality and their role in the society in which the artist lives. The artistic production is an interactive spatial installation combining family archive photos, video interviews and tapestry. Based on the artist’s family history, ‘Kwetu’ explores the collision and duality between tradition and today’s globalised urban life in Kinshasa, and their cohabitation over time.
She has also woven a raffia carpet using the traditional ‘kekele’ (rattan) weaving technique. This work is traditionally reserved for men, but the artist has made the practice her own, claiming a new role for women in today’s society. As a working process, the making of the carpet is a way of overcoming limits, and thus an invitation to consider fragility in its malleability as a possibility for change.
Kwetu means ‘home’ in Tshiluba and, in the context of this project, reflection on one’s own identity. The empty chair invites visitors to become part of the work of art and to ask questions about identity and self.
Melisa Kayowa was born in 1998 in Kinshasa. She holds a master’s degree in graphic design, interior architecture option, from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa. She currently works there as an administrative secretary and trainee in the painting department. She combines her studies with a busy professional life. Collaboration, coordination and exhibitions.
She learnt sewing at the Louis Palazzolo technical college and, while studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, she earned her living designing clothes and accessories. She has enjoyed success as a fashion designer and her designs have been worn by popular stars such as Koffi Olomide, Tshala Muana and Sarah Lula. In her current artistic work, she combines the rigorous academicism of the Kinshasa Academy of Fine Arts with the extravagance and freedom of expression of the popular music scene. By also taking an interest in current social issues, she pursues, in terms of content, the balancing act between visual art and popular culture. She takes a critical look at the socio-cultural aspects of contemporary Congo “ya lelo”. She bases her research on ancestral customs, prohibitions, violence and abuse against women, and the various acts and sanctions of Congolese ethnic groups.