Imaginary identities
Samuel Mwani
Identités Imaginaires is a series of images made up of photographs and collages. The project focuses on a particular current phenomenon in Kinshasa: gangs of young people called ‘Americans’ and ‘Arabs’. These two gangs have each created imaginary identities for themselves in order to define themselves as an entity. Samuel Mwani looked at the visual aspects of this identification and drew new visual narratives from them in his photographs. The images have been created through collaborative work with the young people in question, who themselves reflect on their own representation in the images. As members of gangs, these young people do not show their true identities, but rather deliver an imaginary concept of themselves. Using manual and digital collage techniques, he brings the two enemy gangs together in his series of images.
Samuel Mwani is a photographer who lives and works in his native town Kinshasa. Born in 1999, he is a graduate of the second cycle (Bac+5) of Graphic Arts, option visual communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa. He specialises in urban photography. He documents artistic performances and other everyday actions or events in the public space, in particular the various constructions involved in the urbanisation of his city, various cultural scenes and the activities of youth movements. His images are generally the result of collaborative work between the photographer and the people depicted, demonstrating the tension between action and the static image.
Samuel Mwani’s work has been shown at the Kin Etelemi Telemi Festival (2021), the virtual exhibition Confinement 2.0 (2020), Penning Foundation’s Congo Connecting (2022) and the Galerie du Port de la Ciotat (2022), among others. He is currently Artistic Director of the Ciné-club Minzoto, founded by Peter Miyalu in 2022.