Stretching Threads, Connecting Knowledges – Nshinga mula kawutu utapuluka
September – November 2025
Nada Tshibwabwa is a multidisciplinary visual researcher and performance artist from Kasaï, D. R. Congo, currently living and working in Kinshasa. In his practice, he focuses on Congolese heritage, particularly objects and mythologies linked to the Luba community, exploring their historical context, colonial legacies, and contemporary relevance.
“With the project ‘Nshinga mula kawutu utapuluka – Stretching Threads, Connecting Knowledges’ I aim to bring histories and people together. I want to address the issue that ethnographic museum collections are rarely accessible to the descendants of those who created the objects in them, and that even for the people who have access, the artefacts’ stories mostly stay mute. I want to make the multi-directional threads stretching between realities more present by listening to the objects and creating contemporary responses as messenger-objects. I hope to create decolonial ways of knowledge sharing and making room for the fantastic and imaginary.”
— Nada Tshibwabwa
Nada Tshibwabwa (* 1990, Lubumbashi, D. R. Congo) is a multidisciplinary artist from Kinshasa, working in painting, performance art, sculpture and music. His practice deals with the violence inherent in contemporary power relations, entangled with his own biography, addresses environmental issues, and sets out to create counter-narratives. He connects with ancestral artistic and social practices and focuses on their ability to restore balance in moments of crisis. Tshibwabwa reinvents these practices by infusing them with his own imagination and a symbolic repertoire that he expands as he works.