Mobile Radio actions and Sound Installation, Live 15th of October 2021 from Kinshasa and

11-14th of May 2022 from Berlin

 

Hosted and produced by the team of artists Jasmina Al-Qaisi and Ralf Wendt with Orakle Ngoy and the participants and friends of Laboratoire Kontempo 2021/22 Radio Kinzonzi happened mobile, was spread around various radios and was broadcasted live and in various form over Cashmere Radio (Berlin), Studio Ansage (Berlin) 88.4 FM, Radio Orange (Vienna, Austria) 94.0 FM, Sphere Radio (Leipzig), Radio Tsonami (Valparaiso, Chile), Tesla Fm (Barcelona, Spain), Radio Kapitał (Warsaw, Poland) retrospective on Radio Corax (Halle, Ger) and in 2021 Radio Orange (Vienna, Austria), Radio Panik (Bel), Resonance FM (London), CKUT 90.3 FM (Montreal), Vogel de Woche

on https://www.freie-radios.net/ Radio Okapi on FM in various cities in DR Congo and online on https://labkontempo.com

 

Radio Kinzonzi 15th October Live Mobile Radio Action from Kinshasa, The National Museum of DRC

 

We transmitted live the opening of Laboratoire Kontempo 2021/22 Kinzonzi Exhibition, National Museum of DRC on the 15th of October from 5pm to 8 pm Kinshasa time. We sonified Kinzonzi and various meanings people have to it in several languages, without the desire to understand but to sense, to deconstruct, to negotiate ways of participation. Together we looked at terms and art was just one of them. We got to know each other in this way. Our words, our thoughts, became mirrors, so that those who lose their memory, can see themselves. Together we surrounded secrets to make them public. Discussions, discourses, audio images, rhythms of streets come together with voices of non humans and machines. The live mobile radio action was held by Jasmina, Orakle and Ralf with live radio and collages of the topics of Kinzonzi from before and during the exhibition on various perspectives and angles, we imagine a Kinzonzi universe made by the artists and audiences in Kinshasa with their guests. We’ve listened together to bits and pieces of Kill Bill’s performance, sounds of artwork, the concert of Village Papa Nyangombe. People we spoke with: Mega Mingiedi and Taxi Radio, Mukenge/Schellhammer, Priska Tankwey, Rachel Nyangombe, Viko Moussa, Paulvi Ngimbi, Jean Kamba, Miguel Buenrostro, Luiza Prado, Jérôme Chazeix, Huguette Tolinga, Raul Walch, Gabriella Torres-Ferrer, Jérôme Chazeix, Luiza Prado, Peter Miyalu, Cornelia Lund, Darwin Mumete, Rordrigo and the list will be permanently updated. In the radio program there was also played music and voices from Priska Tankwey and Paulvi Ngimbi’s installation of the exhibition, music from the band Fulu Miziki and Antoine, the guitar player we met at Chez TinTin. The mobile radio artwork was done by Adonis Delta.

Radio Kinzonzi in Radio Okapi throughout October on FM across DR Congo

 

Before their live transmission at the museum, Orakle, Jasmina and Ralf started publishing their radiophonic work done in Kinshasa on Radio Okapi. They had a live on tape discussion with Mr. Jean-Marc Matwaki Mofelele who interviewed them and introduced their intervention to the listeners on the terms and topics of Kinzonzi project together with voices of the participants and friends of Laboratoire Kontempo 2021/22. Their intervention was audible as follows: Friday 15th, 16-18h on Décrochage “Info Kin” from 16h05 to 17h and from 20h to 21h; Saturday from 14h05′ and the magazine Okapi Métissage from 17h to 19h; Sunday from 13h to 15h on FM in DR Congo: Kinshasa 103.5; Bunia 104.9; Bukavu 95.3; Goma 95.5; Kindu 103.0; Kisangani 94.8; Lubumbashi 95.8; Matadi 102.0; Mbandaka 103.0; Mbuji-mayi 93.8 and online.

 

Radio Kinzonzi 11–14th May Live Mobile Radio Action from Berlin in Haus Der Statistik and Acud Macht Neu

 

A couple of months after the start of the project in Kinshasa, Radio Kinzonzi was broadcasting live 11–14 May 4–8 pm daily from Berlin ACUD, Veteranenstrasse 21, 10119 Berlin and Haus der Statistik, Otto-Braun-Strasse 70–72, 10178 Berlin with the Laboratoire Kontempo team and participant artists, composing with sounds, poetry, streets, speaking voice, singing voice, bird voice, readings, existent audio works, open questions, sonifying the actions and performances of the program, jamming, building up serial moments of language exchanges that made Kinzonzi and Miziki audible.

 

Program of our radio 11–14th May

 

Day one 11 May 4–8 PM

Live from Haus Der Statistik

(Coloniality) of languages in arts

The multilingual group debuted discussing in Lingala about the linguistic colonial legacies transposed through arts and culture with language. Jean Kamba opened the first day of radio with a discussion with Orakle Ngoy about threads between language and coloniality. We came together throughout the day as well in other forms of communication and communion in various languages. Miguel Buenrostro talked about the decolonial approach to theory, technology and collaboration between the various backgrounds we have in both Miziki, the music program he curated and Kinzonzi, where he participated as an artist. Koko Kabamba sent us messages every day. On this first day he spoke about Mother Tongues, identity and various cosmologies that come together in his work. The artist Jaq Lisboa enchanted listeners with stories about her practice, her relation to language and memory, Jaq also read to us in Portuguese from Leda Maria Martins about oraliture, and talking with body and drew connections with Ailton Krenak about dreams. Luiza Prado brought us Luiz Gonzaga with an “Asa Branca” song, a slice of history of internal country displacement caused by drought, tying together memories from Kinshasa and culinary languages as a way to communicate. Luiza opened the discussion about visa appointment attire and hardship. Cornelia and Holger Lund were discussing the evening in ACUD, where they presented “Choreographies of the Everyday”, an evening with documentaries and music videos from Kinshasa curated together with the filmmaker Peter Miyal. Peter sent us from Kinshasa a vocal analysis on coloniality and language, interpreted live in English by Holger. Orakle shared thoughts, poetry and music, Jasmina read from Azadi by Arundhati Roy, and Ralf composed live and cared for the well functioning of the radio. We ended the day with a fraction of Paulvi Ngimbi & Prisca Tankwey poem of their installation “Mayangani”.

Day two 12 May 4–8 PM

Live from Haus Der Statistik

transmisssssssion

We are bound to translation but also to transmission. We found ourselves in various relationships with the parameters of our identities, memory, position, landscape and when we get the mic to speak together, intersections show us in relation. This radio day debuted with a discussion about “Leopoldville Mourning”, a collective performance with Prisca Tankwey in public space, held a couple of days ago and the importance of carrying this performance from Kinshasa to Berlin and ending in Belgium. Rachel Nyangombe translated from French to English the talk with Prisca and Paulvi. As a response to our radio proposal for the day, “transmisssssssion”, Koko Kabamba sent us a message about elements of nature. With an interlude of feminine energy with the audio work Orakle Ngoy “Femme Je Pense A Toi” and a discoursive listening to Nyangombe’s song Day O plus interaction with the pass-byers at Haus der Statistik we listened to Jean Kamba’s talk in ACUD about his film on the “Place des évolués” in Kinshasa. What are our tools of transmission, from technologies to timelines? Christ Mukenge and Jean Kamba discuss about the cultural production and the history of art collectives in Kinshasa, while Jasmina Al-Qaisi continuined her moderation from a couple of stations away, transmitting before the talk in ACUD “Decolonizing Music Technologies vol.1” with Moises Horta, Khyam Allami, Ale Hop, Romain Malwengo Kingenzi, moderated by Nico Daleman. Jasmina talked to the invited artists and scholars about their practice in relation to the topic of transmission and technology, hacking, as well with Virginie Varlet about her translation and language interpretation throughout the festival. Orakle and Ralf ended the day with collages of voices of birds and people between Kinshasa and Berlin.

Day three 13 May 4–8 pm

Live from Haus Der Statistik

do it yourself with others

We started this radio session with Congolese Rumba scholar and historian, Mr. Romain Malwengo Kingenzi in a discussion about tradition, material, resonance, distribution with Orakle. We listened to Fulu Miziki, talked about bricolage and experiments continued with reflections from afar of the magnificent drummer Huguette Tolinga. Further, our dear Cedrick Tshimbalanga talked about his project Option ONDG combining social work and environmental protection with arts in Kinshasa. What does it mean to us and what does it take nowadays to be an independent artist? Especially in a Kinzonzi sense, what are the challenges that we can share and what do we want to change? Further Jean Kamba and Mukenge/Schellhammer put in context their practice of Partagisme, a collective artistic practice they started in Kinshasa and presented on the 5th of May in a public talk at Haus der Statistik discussing collective painting, collective work and authorship. In the middle of the last details before the opening of the exhibition, Raul Walch talked with the radio team about his practice of working with others, doing DYI projects with a critical approach to institutions. Right after the opening, Jérôme Chazeix talked about his experience with working with Cedrik and youth in Kinshasa to create the empowering video shown in the exhibition. Ready to perform – Kill Bill and ready to show their work Prisca and Paulvi, ready to sing Wilfried Luzele aka Lova Lova take the pulse and give a frame to the events to come in Kinzonzi-Miziki moderated by Orakle and surrounded by the physical and over waves audiences. A relay of the introduction and frame of Mukenge/Schellhammer work together gave in Hopscotch Reading Room on the 4th of May entitled “Speculative Spaces – Strategic Auto-Exoticisation” with the screening of their film “Your exoticism is my daily bread”. From her position between audience and colleague, Lauriane Daphne Carl presented a work of hers with the alien drag artist itchi titled “Anatomy of Desire”. As audiences were entering and exiting the space, we played the voice of Dorine Mokha, more precisely a part of the work “Entre Deux: Testament”, in remembrance of her impressive body of work. The last minutes of our radio program were the introduction moments of the exhibition in Haus der Statistik, where the organizers and curators used the radio to welcome audiences in the frame of Laboratoire Kontempo. Between French and English, the duo Mukenge/Schellhammer draw attention to the importance of a project that involves artists, researchers, thinkers and technology from Kinshasa and not the European lead art projects.

Day four 14 May 4–8 PM

Live from ACUD MACHT NEU

art is work is art

What and how art spaces and forms change when Kinshasa and Berlin collaborate? How do our worlds intersect and what happens after we meet? Talks about struggles, burdens and goals found their space this day. In this last day of radio, we moved to ACUD courtyard and we started fragments of the discussion between Christ Mukenge, Jean Kamba, Lydia Schellhammer Paulvi Ngimbi and Prisca Tankwey about the importance of negotiation between the avant-garde, the relations with the academy of arts and the European cultural institutions that support artistic endeavours. We imagined and made possible an afternoon about gatherings, collective activity and togetherness between artists and cultural workers transcending art, a group mediation of differences and commons, the diasporic realities and their reflections in our lives. Further Jean Kamba with Orakle and Jasmina were reading and discussing about coloniality and language on the basis of the publication Jean brough entitled “The Voice of Congolese”. The reading and dissemination through poetry and historical information was followed by Miguel discussing contradictions and controversies of patrimony and archives. The afternoon culminated with a small recollection of notions from Kinzonzi stage in Kinshasa in 2021. The beginning of the opening, Jasmina did a small gallery tour inviting the listeners to visit the exhibition until the 25th of June in ACUD Gallery giving an audio impression of all the works in the show: Sinzo Aanza shows “A Sketch of the City for Manzambi IIII”; “The History of Memory”, Koko Kabamba “La voix du congolais” by Jean Kamba, Billy Ngalamulume aka Kill Bill’s “Bilobela TV Lokuta FM”, “Fight the System” by Rachel Nyangombe, “Untitled (What a Crypton)” by Gabriella Torres-Ferrer, “The Sceptical Chemist (2018)” by Raul Walch, Taxi Radio by Radio Kinzonzi dedicated to Mega Mingiedi. Orakle jammed with a Korg Sampler throughout the evening where musicians, artists, scholars, invited people of both Miziki and Kinzonzi gathered around and joined in a similarly warm manner to how the last moments of radio looked like in Kinshasa in 2021 in front of the Museum. We used the radio to play the sound for Kill Bill’s performance that spread through the whole courtyard.

 

“Taxi Radio” Sound Installation ACUD MACHT NEU 14 May-25 June

 

A 10 hours selection of live radio documentation has been composed into a sound installation on view in the exhibition of Laboratoire Kontempo at ACUD Galerie open Thursday till Sunday 14h – 19h. This sound installation is dedicated to the listening experiences and learning from the artist Mega Mingiedi in Kinshasa in 2021.

“I consider the taxi as a space of encounter.” Mega Mingiedi in Taxi Radio

Radio Kinzonzi is Jasmina Al-Qaisi, Ralf Wendt and Orakle Ngoy, with Laboratoire Kontempo, Mukenge/Schellhammer, Priska Tankwey, Cedrick Tshimbalanga, Paulvi Ngimbi, Jean Kamba, Rachel Nyangombe, Viko Moussa, Miguel Buenrostro, Luiza Prado, Jérôme Chazeix, Huguette Tolinga, Raul Walch, Gabriella Torres-Ferrer, Jérôme Chazeix, Luiza Prado, Peter Miyalu, Cornelia Lund, Jaq Lisboa, Kill Bill, Village Papa Nyangombe, Darwin Mumete, Rordrigo, Fulu Miziki, Antoine from Chez TinTin, Radio Okapi, Jean-Marc Matwaki Mofelele, Koko Kabamba, Romain Malwengo Kingenzi, Nico Daleman, Khyam Allami, Moises Horta “Hexorcismos”, Virginie Varlet and more.