Michèle Magema

Michèle Magema (born 1977) is a Congolese-French visual artist, known primarily for her video, performance, photography and drawing. Born in Kinshasa, DRC, she currently resides in Nevers, France.^[1][2] Magema's work considers memory, the multiplicity of histories, and temporality. ^[3]

Michèle Magema
Michèle Magema

Biography

Magema as born in Kinshasa, Zaire in 1977. She emigrated to Paris, France in 1984.^[4] Magema's father was politically active in France as a political refugee.^[3] In 2002 Michèle Magema received her MA in fine arts from l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Cergy. After her graduation, she traveled to South Korea for a post diploma residency, followed by an Ifritry residency in Morocco. In addition to being a resident artist at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, she has participated in the Africa Remix Exhibition. Her work has been exhibited in the Global Feminisms exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum,^[4] the Hirshoron Museum, and Sculpture Garden.^[3]

With a background in plastic art Michèle Magema started her career as a painter. Then she followed experimenting with video, performance, photography and finally mixing video with drawing and text. Nowadays she is a multimedia interdisciplinary artist expressing herself mainly through video performance, where she overlaid different medias such as photography with drawing, drawing with video, photo on lace. The art of Michèle Magema has been influenced by many disciplines and artists: in literature and poetry by Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, Maya Angelou, Senghor, Edouard Glissant, Frantz Fanon; in music by Billie Holiday; from the experimental cinema she has been inspired by Antonioni, Fellini, Rossilini, Wim Wenders, Ingmar Bergman, as well as from women artists like Pipilitorist, Cindy Sherman, Anna Mendieta, Eva Esse, Gina Pane, Renée Green.

Michèle Magema artworks are at the intermediary mental zone between individual histories, global history and art history. She establishes a permanent dialogue between her own stories and souvenirs with the collective memory of the spectators by approaching different themes such as feminism, sociology, politics, and mythology. The presence or the absence of the body is always at the centre of her work.

Michèle Magema earned several art awards and professional achievements among which the first prize of the Dakar Biennale 2004 and the Yango Biennale IFAA prize 2014. Some of her works are stored within private contemporary art collections including Sindika Dokolo Collection in Luanda (Angola), Tervuren Contemporary Collection (Belgium) and the Artothèque Villeurbanne (France).

One of her most well-known works is Oyé Oyé, (2004) a two‐channel video installation, in which a woman (Magema) is shown marching in place on the left, while on the right historic footage of Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko overseeing parades of Congolese cultural pride.^[3]

Feminism

During Michèle Magema's time at École nationale supériere des Beaux-Arts (National School for Fine Arts) at Cergy, she was unable to find female Congolese artists to draw inspiration from. This experience led her to decide to become a notable female Congolese artist herself. Magema's artwork contends with the notion of Afro-feminisms. Magema has shared that in her conception of Afro-feminism, the matrilineal line holds significance- a value passed down from her own mother. She says that her work, Mémoire Hévéa, translating from French to Rubber Tree Memory, explores this concept of feminist heritage most of her art works. Magema subscribes to the idea of multiple fluid feminisms. ^[3][5]