Mbwa (Series of work, 2023/2024)

3D animated image (Collaboration: Ahenkan Yeboah)

Single-channel video/3D animated image (Collaboration: Ahenkan Yeboah)

Godelive Kasangati is a Congolese visual artist who uses photography, painting and video to explore themes of self-definition and inter-human relations. Her work often features personal black-and-white portraits of isolated or familiar scenes, focusing on personal and cultural identity, memory and space. Her work Mbwa is a multimedia video and 3D animation series that takes as its starting point the story of the dog Basenji, a descendant of the Levier breed. It examines the Basenji dog in relation to the history of its image over time, reflecting on the genealogy of this dog in relation to image reproduction and speculation in the pre- and post-colonial period. The influence of time and space on the context of the reproduction of her image enables a speculative reproduction of the image, imagining what might have happened at different times. Simultaneously, she explores how this dog as an autonomous body might, in some way, offer a new perspective on what happens when the image of a dog’s body is reproduced over time.

Mbwa : Now Mine (2024, Burkina Faso)

Recycled aluminum, portable object (Collaboration Noël Koutaba, Hermane Koutaba)

Now Mine, as a portable object, is one of three cast aluminum editions. This offers a perspective on the way reproduced images assert themselves as autonomous, sometimes blurring the links that might point them back to their origins. These reproduced images allow me to re-imagine the dog itself, as the images, shaken by the reproduction apparatus, can only become dynamic through this process. The Basenji dog’s high, tightly curled tail and the pheromones released by the female – introduced by my exploration of genealogy, reproduction and distribution – invite reflections on its sexuality as a site of multiplicity. These elements inspired me to create these aluminum works, which are inspired by the dog’s tail and the essence of its pheromonal release. For me, this navigates between form and formlessness. Positioning myself to approach the dog as a body opens up a deeper reflection on what an image, as a position, can offer when engaging with imagery.