The presentation reflects upon the draining rhythms of Central African cityscapes. Urban dwellers have to make constant efforts to overcome the city’s disorder and its ensuing ambiguities. The city forces them to engage in an almost daily ‘divinatory’ act of trying to guess the meanings that lay hidden within the fluid parameters of urban life, of unveiling the city’s unreliability, of steering clear of its many unpredictable events, of cruising unscathed throughout the day, and of making sense of one’s own pathways of adversity or luck. This daily labour is often structured around the activity of ‘searching’ (Lingala: koluka), a term commonly used by urbanites to describe their daily quest for food, money, jobs, contacts and opportunities. Although one can easily lose oneself in this often desperate ‘searching’, it simultaneously involves the interpretive capacity or possibility to discover and grasp opportunities in the gaps that invariably open up between, or even within, things, events and persons.
Filip De Boeck is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He has conducted extensive ethnographic research in both rural and urban communities in D.R. Congo since 1987. His book publications include ‘Kinshasa: Tales of the Invisible City’, with photographer Marie- Françoise Plissart (Leuven University Press, new edition 2014) and ‘Makers and Breakers: Children and Youth in Postcolonial Africa’, co-edited with Alcinda Honwana (James Currey, 2005). Together with co-curator Koen Van Synghel, he presented an exhibition about Kinshasa at the Belgian Pavillion of the Architecture Biennial in Venice (2004), for which they received a Golden Lion, and he also co-curated an exhibition around the work of Congolese artist Bylex for the Royal Flemish Theatre (KVS) in Brussels (2008). In 2010, De Boeck released ‘Cemetery State’ (FilmNatie), a documentary about a Kinshasa graveyard. He is currently doing research on new urban extensions in various cities across the African continent. Together with photographer Sammy Baloji, he is preparing a book on the subject.
The lecture will be in English and takes place in the context of Ângela Ferreira’s exhibition Indépendance Cha Cha, which runs until 01.06.2014.
This project has been developed in partnership with the EDP Foundation and in collaboration with Africa.Cont. Our thanks also to Culturgest for their kind support during the production of the exhibition.
Maumaus
Avenida António Augusto de Aguiar, 148 - 3º C
1050-021 Lisboa, Portugal
Monday to Friday, 10h00 to 13h00,
14h30 to 19h00
Tel: + 351 21 352 11 55
maumaus@maumaus.org
Current:
Independent Study Programme
Call 2025
Until 31.08.2024
Upcoming:
Manthia Diawara
Angela Davis: A World of Greater Freedom
Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon
30.09.2023, 19h00
Commissioned by Serpentine, MUBI and PCAI Polygreen Culture & Art Initiative, as part of Serpentine's Back to Earth project.
Upcoming:
On Subversion + Cooptation: Strategies of Survival from
the Periphery of Empire
with Shellyne Rodriguez
10.07.2024, 18h00
Maumaus
Avenida António Augusto de Aguiar, 148 - 3º C
1050-021 Lisboa, Portugal
The discussion will be in English.
Entry is free and limited to the number
of seats available.
Upcoming:
PROBLEMATISING REALITY
Encounters between art and philosophy
Seminar 4
Turbid Media
with Esther Leslie
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Sala 3, Zona de Congressos
19.–21.06.2024, 11h–13h,14h–17h
Programme 5
True or false
Salam Cinema (1995)
by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
with Esther Leslie and Jihan El Tahri
with Esther Leslie and Jihan El Tahri
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Auditorium 2
09.05.2024, 18h30
Upcoming:
Programme 4
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
16.02.2024
Programme 2:
(de)framing the frame
Meeting the Man:
James Baldwin in Paris (1970)
by Terence Dixon
with Sarah Lewis-Cappellari
and Kerstin Stakemeier
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Auditorium 2
23.11.2023, 18h30
Programme 1:
space, place and memory
with Billy Woodberry
and Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Auditorium 3
13.10.2023, 18h30
Manthia Diawara
Angela Davis: A World of Greater Freedom
Sharjah Biennial 15
07.02. – 11.06.2023
Manthia Diawara
A Letter from Yene
Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto
14.03.2023
Current:
Seminar
Amanda Boetzkes
Realism Without Authority
01.04, 04.04.2022
10h–13h, 14h–17h
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
Registration is free but limited to the number of seats available. Please send an email with a short CV to admin@maumaus.org by 24.03.2022. Confirmation of registration will be sent by email. The seminar will be in English.
Lumiar Cité
Rua Tomás del Negro, 8A
1750-105 Lisboa, Portugal
Wednesday to Sunday, 15h00 to 19h00
or by appointment.
Tel: + 351 21 755 15 70
lumiar.cite@maumaus.org
Loretta Fahrenholz
Circle Navel Nil
24.04. – 27.06.2021
24.06 | 18h00 Online conversation with Sabeth
Buchmann, Loretta Fahrenholz and Jürgen Bock
Current:
Dozie Kanu
PREENCHENDO VAZIOS
20.01. – 14.04.2024
20.01 | 16h00 Opening of the exhibition
16.03 | 17h00 Talk between Dozie Kanu
and Simon Thompson
Current:
ONCE IN A HUNDRED YEARS
Sid Iandovka & Anya Tsyrlina with Leslie Thornton & Thomas Zummer
A combined exhibition between
Lumiar Cité and Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg.
A combined exhibition between
Lumiar Cité and Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg.
Lumiar Cité
27.04. – 28.07.2024
Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg
18.05. – 28.07.2024
27.04. – 28.07.2024 | Lumiar Cité
18.05. – 28.07.2024 | Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg
A co-production by Lumiar Cité
and Artium Museum
14.10 | 17h00 Book launch with talk between
Alejandro Cesarco and
Miguel Wandschneider
| 18h00 Opening of the exhibition
Current:
Artium Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz
24.03. – 24.09.2023
Upcoming:
Lumiar Cité
14.10.2023 – 14.01.2024
Collaboration:
The Educational Web
Kunstverein in Hamburg
01.04. – 06.08.2023
Closed 24, 25, 31 December and 1 January
Arne Kaiser and Jürgen Bock
In cooperation with Lumiar Cité:
Tiffany Chung
Thu Thiêm: an archaeological
project for future remembrance
08.06. - 08.09.2019
Johann Jacobs Museum
In co-production with Lumiar Cité:
Alejandro Cesarco
Other Recent Examples
24.03. - 24.09.2023
Artium Museum
The Educational Web
31.03. - 06.08.2023
Kunstverein in Hamburg
Maumaus/Lumiar Cité is funded by República Portuguesa – Cultura/Direção-Geral das Artes. With the support of Câmara Municipal de Lisboa and Junta de Freguesia do Lumiar.