Sammy Baloji

Sammy Baloji (born in Lubumbashi in 1978) is a photographer and video artist. His multimedia work focuses on examining the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially his home region of Katanga. In his works, he weaves material and narrative history together and points out the cultural and economic consequences of raw material production and exploitation. He sets reality and representations in stark contrast to each other to reveal past and present tensions in the day-to-day lives of Congolese people.

From the series Mémoire
Digital print, 90 cm x 248 cm

In Mémoire, Sammy Baloji links archival photographs from the Belgian colonial period with current photos of the mining city of Lubumbashi (known as Élisabethville or Elisabethstad from 1910 until 1966), in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This large-format photo montage draws powerful connections between human exploitation and the raw materials on which many Western technologies are based, creating a direct link between the colonial past and the ongoing post-colonial systems of exploitation. Through photography, Baloji overlays the present and the past, crafting a powerful testimonial to the violence of global value chains and colonial heritage in the DRC. He highlights the marks that social history has left on both architecture and individual bodies, and puts the focus on places as sites of remembrance and witnesses to power relations.