Poetry Reading | The Paradigm of the Merchant with Sinzo Aanza

This intervention, between poetic performance, photography and discussion, explores a pivotal, although little discussed, aspect of the history of African art: the merchant's story, his projections and what he ends up building in space. It will explore, from the history of colonial acquisitions of Congolese art pieces in what then becomes an African art market, the development of stories, knowledge and know-how on the one hand but also of artifacts production and cultural identification on the other.
The presentation echoes the research currently being carried out by the artist in Dubai, interested in the impact of traders on the imagination of cities and their transformation, with the exchanges between Deira and the markets of Congolese cities as a starting point.
Date: 27 November, 2024
Time: 7PM - 8.30PM
Venue: WH51, Alserkal Arts Foundation
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Sinzo Aanza is a Congolese artist whose work focuses on the radicality of fiction. In 2007, Luhindi K. Sinzomene created Sinzo Aanza, a radical fiction to whom he assigns the responsibility for the interactions between his creations, first literary and then visual, and the equally frictional social frameworks in which the encounter, discussion and projections around all the other inventions developed by men to frame life, its understanding, organisation and projections become possible. Aanza (b. 1990 in Goma, DR Congo) lives and works in Kinshasa, DR Congo.
Research Focus:
Sinzo is interested in markets, in their traditional form as the roots of the urban phenomenon, the traditional meeting point for setting the value of things according to different backgrounds and perspectives, but also as the first place for the political exercise radically generalized by the advent of modern States with international forums for discussion, negotiation and competition. During his residency, Sinzo plans to study and collect data in two of these markets, namely Deira and the central market of Kinshasa, commonly called Zando. Even more, how these two markets could become places to understand interactions beyond trade, in the field of history, international policies and current events often shaken up in Congo by the mining question and its conflicts.

Host or Publisher Alserkal Arts Foundation