Bokoko
Athou Molimo Bongonda alias Spiritus
Bokoko (2024)
Multimedia Installation
In his work Bokoko, Athou Molimo Bongonda, alias Spiritus, combines pre-colonial practices with contemporary artistic performance. In collaboration with traditional healers, he explores various traditional methods and ancestral practices: “pemba” is a light-brown earth rubbed on the body to protect against evil spirits, while also having beneficial effects on the stomach and skin. Spiritus himself uses it as a means of attracting attention to himself in urban spaces and making his body shine. “Ngola” is a pigment used in a ceremony for mothers after the birth of their first child. The statue represents the link with the ancestors. As a metamorphosed body, Spiritus reinterprets these elements in relation to his personal history, presenting himself as an image of the spirit of the ancestors. To do this, he uses the urban performance style that developed in Kinshasa from 2000 to the present day, allowing direct contact between artist, body and audience. In an interactive approach, he deliberately uses elements that elicit strong reactions, including nudity and elements with spiritual connotations.
Athou Molimo Bongonda alias Spiritus was born in Kinshasa in 1980. During his humanities studies, he attended the Kinshasa Fine Arts Institute for two years. For financial reasons, he was unable to pursue his artistic training, and instead learned to be self-taught through the collaboration and initiation of other artists such as Bebson de la Rue and Papa Mfumu’eto 1ᵉʳ. He began his artistic career as a rapper with the Ghetto Trionyx orchestra.
By this time, he was already drawing, and when he encountered contemporary performance in 2007 as part of “Scénographies urbaines”, he opted for a transdisciplinary approach. As part of the project, he shows an urban performance in collaboration with Djanga Weni, Daouda Mputu and Elu, and attended the urban performance by Steven Cohen and Androa Mindre Kolo. In 2018, he made his first appearance as a solo performer as part of the Kinact festival. Since then, his work has combined experimental sound, performance and multimedia installations.
The content of his work focuses on social issues in his native Kinshasa, such as inequality and redistribution. Aesthetically, his work combines pre-colonial art forms, contemporary performance art and digital media. A survivor of an abortion, his original name, Athou Molimo, means “spirit”. He appropriates this name as an artist, showing his performances, drawings and sound experiments, under the pseudonym “Spiritus”, a mysterious, dreamlike atmosphere.